


These lights look brighter when its your name in them

by Fishandchickennuggetsplease



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death - Finn Hudson, Drama, F/F, Fluff, NYADA au, Romance, and theatre kid quinn, character study vibes, child star rachel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28610313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fishandchickennuggetsplease/pseuds/Fishandchickennuggetsplease
Summary: She’s clutching the cast soundtrack she bought with her pocket money, and her little mind is hard at work. She’s got work to do to go from shy little Lucy to sing and dance like Rachel Berry.-------Child star Rachel Berry meets Quinn Fabray in her freshman class at NYADA and in every life, thinks she's the prettiest girl she's ever met. A bit of a character study for these versions of these girls and how their lives change.
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel, Quinn Fabray & Santana Lopez & Brittany S. Pierce, Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray, Santana Lopez/Brittany S. Pierce
Comments: 65
Kudos: 110





	1. how to get out of Lima, Ohio

**Author's Note:**

> Well its funny what a global pandemic and getting stuck on Glee tiktok can lead to- writing fic for a 10 year old show! Some credit for inspiration goes to @wouldratherbe's fic where Quinn sees Rachel in Les mis, while this is very different it did plant the idea in my head. Hope you enjoy my first faberry fic, and don't think too hard about what year any of these musicals came out (you'll get a headache.)

“And this year’s winner of the Scripture prize is… Lucy!” the youth minister calls out. Lucy Quinn Fabray, age 7, beams as she stands, smooths out her yellow dress and bounds up to the front of the church and accepts her ribbon and book token as a prize, mind already racing with possibilities for the ten dollar voucher, and the much bigger treat she’d get to pick for bringing honour to the Fabray name- her first, though she’s seen her sister decide on shopping sprees and the sort of slumber parties 13 year olds dream of having for her treats since she started winning middle school cheer competitions. Lucy fidgets through the rest of church in excitement and smiles when her parents friends pat her little blonde head in congratulations after it. Then finally she drags the Columbus newspaper unto the table at dessert and presents the advertisement for the touring production of Matilda with wide, pleading eyes. Its her favourite book this month, she tells her parents, and she’s got her father wrapped around her finger enough then that the theatre-averse Russel and Judy sigh and agree to book them a trip there, for Christmas.

In another life, a boy two grades above her remembers an extra two verses of the psalm and she loses. But this Lucy has her life transformed, bouncing on the balls of her feet in her Sunday best shoes through the ticket line and to her seat in the cavernous Ohio theatre. She reads through the programme hungrily then sits up straight when the orchestra swells. This is nothing like hearing music through her piano teacher’s tinny speakers.

She’s transfixed by the lights and movements and giggles at the antics of Mrs wormwood and then- a tiny little girl holding a stack of books steps on to the stage. Matilda, she thinks, wowed- and then she starts to sing. By the end of act one, Lucy’s eyes follow the girl on every part of the stage and holds her breath at every note. When she sings her song about quiet, Lucy thinks of nights where she goes still and rigid in her bed at the sound of shouting and crashing downstairs. When they sing about growing up for the second time, the vision in Lucy’s head has irrevocably changed- gone are images of hosting church dinner parties and kissing her husband hello over the already simmering dinner. She just wants to sing like that too.

On the way home the next day, the Fabray’s discuss the horrendous selfishness of the children in the show, the lack of Christian morals in the Wormwoods- and in theatre in general don’t forget, Judy did you see the girl playing Matilda thanked her fathers - plural? Their words float above Lucy’s head. She’s clutching the cast soundtrack she bought with her pocket money, and her little mind is hard at work. She’s got work to do to go from shy little Lucy to sing and dance like Rachel Berry- her Matilda.

The next pleading dinner conversation, to become a Broadway star, doesn’t go over so well. She wore her ribbon from the contest and everything- but Russel makes the table shake with his fist pounding during the rant about the vulgar work of performers, the lack of respect for religion. Judy purses her lips together so hard they disappear. Frannie gives her a pleading look and says no, she can be a real estate agent along with her one day. She drops it as a silly idea to her parents before any plates are smashed, but the message is clear- that night when she buries under the covers with her earphone in, she takes the cast soundtrack as instructions. She’ll have to be a little bit naughty.

It takes planning, but each time they do a research project for school, she uses family computer to look up how to become an actress. She’s going to need singing, dancing and acting- well. Better get to work.

For her 8th birthday she asks to double her piano lessons- to get better to play in church when she’s older, of course, she says with a nervous grin to her parents- and sends the email to her tutor herself when Russel and Judy get predictably glassy eyed after dinner. She deletes the message that books herself singing lessons in the new time slot from their sent items. For her 9th, she begs for tumbling classes so she can one day be a cheerleader like Frannie (who’s trophy shelf has started to bow in the middle under the weight of Coach Sylvester’s specific brand of ruthless victory), and picks a studio that does dance too, to get one step closer. By that Christmas, she can belt songs like she never thought she would and watches the contemporary dance classes from the balcony in the hour before Judy can pick her up. Her Matilda CD starts to skip from overuse.

There’s a universe where Lucy meets two girls at the freshmen cheer camp and decides to make some allies. This world isn’t as lonely- like a gift from above, she walks into the gym changing room one bright afternoon and into the side of a tall blonde girl. Lucy springs back as if she’s been burned, "Sorry, sorry! I wasn’t looking where I was going-"

The girl just turns around happily. "Don’t worry. The Lord Tubbington tries to knock me over all the time, and he’s not succeeded yet. You brace your knees and the cats can’t work around it", Brittney Pierce says in all her quickly glory. Lucy furrows her eyebrows as she stretches out her hand. "I’m Brittney. Why haven’t we met before?"

"Lucy.. and uh- my class has moved later" She responds.

Britney’s face twists in confusion. "Have you got another name?"

"No. What?"

"I don’t know. Lucy just doesn’t sound like your unicorn name, if you know what I mean."

Lucy most certainly does not. She regrets this conversations already but sticks to it. "I mean, you could call me by my middle name- Quinn?"

Britney nods seriously, then launches into an explanation about how she wishes it was that easy to convince Britney Spears to change her name, so that she could be more unique too.

"I think you’re plenty unique."

"Thank you", Britney flushes like its the highest form of flattery, before looking thoughtful. "Do you want to go into class and learn my dance today? I’ve already got it down and I need a nap- I was up late hunting for ghosts in my garden."

For a second she considers saying yes. The other kids at her elementary don’t think she’s any fun now that they swear and she can’t lest Jesus, or her father, kill her- but she doesn’t think Brittney would mind. This girl is funny, her own person, with spunk right out of a musical, and Lucy would love a friend like that. "I’m actually a gymnast", she says regretfully, patting her over the shoulder bag.

"I’ve seen you watch our lessons"

Her cheeks flame red then, having never wanted to be caught and made to explain herself- the other kids talk about being a dentist or in a lab or teaching or staying at home with 7 kids. She had taken her love of the stage and buried it deep in her chest. "I’m just waiting for my mom."

"No, you’re not". Brittney argues back happily. It takes several minutes of back and forth and Brittney’s uncanny insight, but finally the girls strike an agreement- Lucy, or Quinn she now supposes, will take Britts dance class on Thursdays and her own tumbling class on Mondays and vice versa. And so the best friendship of her life begins. The times she spends practicing moves on the floor of the spare rooms until they form piles of blonde giggles become a highlight of the week. They talk, too- she tells her dreams about standing ovations, stages lit up for her to sing on them. Brittney responds in kind and tells her Lord Tubbington has foretold a life where she dances all day and no one ever calls her stupid. Quinn has watched her pick up choreography- she is far from stupid.

A few months into their arrangement, she meets Santana at a sleepover she’d convinced Frannie to drive her to on the way to her boyfriend’s house. She’s as sharp tounged and fiercely protective of her blonde best friend at 10 here as she’d be in every life, and Quinn panics for three solid hours that the Latina hates her and won’t let her be friends with Britt when they all end up at McKinley until its clear they share an unwavering belief that Brittney is a genius in her own way and a love for bad movies. By the time they’re brushing their teeth for bed, she gets a genuine smile. "You’re not bad, Quinn."

Friday night sleepovers become a ritual, after that. Quinn would never dare say it, but they feel more sacred than church- there’s laughter and cupcakes and Brittney’s parents never shout or break things. They watch movies and old Cheerios routines on Brittany’s laptop, with solid plans to join together in freshman year. It’s obvious that Santana and Britney are popular at their middle school by the way they talk about it, and while she’s moved up the food chain at her own now her two best friends have all but banished her shyness, the cheerleaders in the videos seem like a whole other level.

(Sometimes Britney and Santana look at each other like there’s no one else in the world, and she’ll leave them to it. The computer of the Fabray household doesn’t have headphones, so she waits until her best friends disappear into their own little world to search up musicals on YouTube, and okay, sometimes search up Rachel’s name specifically. The night she finds footage of the child star, still tiny at 9 or 10, singing ‘castle on a cloud’ on Broadway, it’s still the same visceral reaction she had to the girl at 7. Britney comes to find her and hears the tail of Rachel’s interview from the Tony’s, and gives her a soft smile.)

Middle school begins to fade into memory with an eight grade filled with parties she follows her friends to, dance classes and tumbling, and parents who are more and more glassy eyed with each passing month. They play spin the bottle at a party in someone’s basement on a sticky night in May, and Quinn (almost always, now) watches Santana kiss a high school freshman with confidence and finally asks the questions that been tingling on her lips after years of getting to know the girl and her clumsily hidden kindness, her affinity for attention. The three walk the two blocks home to Santana’s with arms linked and she can’t help herself. "San? How do you have so much confidence?"

The Latina spared a glance sideways as they walked. "Confidence isn’t real, Q. It’s just the best method acting class of your life."

The choice of words makes laughter bubble up in her throat. Singing and dancing classes she’d worked out ages ago and had lied about since- and here the solution to acting was right in front of her. It’s wasn’t going to be through scoring the role of Mary each Christmas- it could be every day of high school if she really wanted the practice. "So you’re saying you fake it to you make it?"

Santana nods. "And I think I’m on my way to making it."

They fall into companionable silence then, until Britt stops dead in her tracks because she felt the presence of Lord Tubbington’s mafia contacts nearby. The fall they take all together isn’t pretty, but the nose job she gets after the elbow to the face Santana gave her as they fell looks pretty sweet once it heals.

That summer brings cheer camp, and the beginning of short polyester skirts that Russel and Judy only approve of because it got their eldest daughter a college scholarship and a respectable footballer boyfriend. Quinn, for her part, dates their church choir master’s son for the second half of the summer. He kisses her gently when he leaves her to the porch and takes her on summer picnics and affection feels like method acting but it’s nice when he holds her hand in church. They break up when cheer means they have no time to spend together and she refuses to give up unholy trinity sleepovers to hang out with him. Judy is only mildly disappointed- they lasted long enough to go to at least one church youth formal, at least.

She gets made junior varsity cheer captain by a snarling Coach Sue who calls her Frannie half the time and she falls into the role best she can, barking orders on the field and insults down corridors even though the other kids have done nothing to deserve it. Its acting, she chants in her head. By October, their whole grade give her, Santana and Brittney jealous looks as they sashay down the corridors. It really does look like Quinn Fabray (at least her character) can do anything- her bookworm ways pay off in AP classes, and her nose job pays off when junior varsity quarterback Finn Hudson agrees to go out with her. Finn is gentle, straight forward and has definitely taken a lot of hits to the head for the sake of the game, but takes her to breadsticks and listens a little more than she gives him credit for, judging by the flyer for Lima community theatre’s summer auditions he gives her for their three month anniversary.

“They’re doing, um,” he looks down at the flyer to check, “Legally blonde, and you’re blonde and Brittney told me you’re a good singer as well as a cheerleader. So, take it.” She gives him the most genuine kiss of their relationship thus far as she stares at the slightly crumped page as a way of thanking him. She’d make a great Elle.

The summer flies by as rehearsals get underway- school makes crafted insults to stay on top and book reports seem like they’re important, but this is a breath of fresh air, a guiding star to remind her why she even wants a cheer nationals for future applications. Britney gets to be an angel, Santana tries to take out everyone’s ankles as Brooke, and Quinn wears pink all summer long as Elle and has the time of her life, as she figures that actually, she’s kind of great at this.

Her love interest is this slight boy named Kurt from two towns over, who’s gaze lingers too long on Sam Evans’ legs as the post boy to make Elle and Warren’s romance scenes very genuine- but they’re fast friends by the end of the summer. Between scene breaks in tech week, he talks about flying out pilot season- his dad is willing to support him, because his mum used to say he’d be famous. By sophomore year of summer theatre, he’s gone, booked on some NBC show, and Quinn can’t help but be jealous that Burt will move across the country for his kid’s big dreams. Judy and Russel are having such violent arguments these days they don’t even notice she’s never home.

Sophomore year brings the realisation that dating shouldn’t feel like improv acting quite so much, but she shoves that realisation and what it could mean to the back of her mind to deal with after her friends aren’t imploding. It takes the experience of kissing every football player in the school but Santana works out that kissing Britt is more fun. Brittney had that small knowing smile when she told her- but one that vanished when her best friend picked denial and started ignoring her. Quinn finally has enough one day of watching them make out with a new boy everyday in a misguided attempt to show the other one their bleeding heart and leaves them to it, heading to the auditorium.

She plans to play complicated concertos as a distraction but curiosity overtakes it when peaks the doors around to see confident diva Mercedes Jones and the timid Tina Cohen-Chang singing their hearts out in a duet. Before she can help it- a high harmony flows out and joins in.

The two girls look up, a startled look that turns to pure fear when they see her high pony and tight polyester. Slushies are time honoured at McKinley. This Quinn is more interested in dousing boys who leer up skirts and girls whose bitchy comments tip over into small town racism- but when she’s acting the head cheerleader its impossible to stop loser girls like them getting stuck in the cross fire. She indicates for them to keep singing and jogs up the steps to reach them for the last chorus. When three part harmony gives way to deep breaths, she smiles at them. "Do you guys do this often?"

Tina and Mercedes share a glance, waiting for the hidden prank camera to emerge, most likely. "A few times a week", Mercedes finally says, non-committally.

"I can tell. You both sing really well together." She says genuinely. With her own vocal training, she can both girls have something special in their voices- and she’s never met anyone at McKinley who cares about this sort of thing. They still look scared. Quinn lets her smile drop a little, from the shark grin she’s realised she’s giving them. They’re expecting the Bitch, not the well-hidden musical theatre kid.

"You too", Tina says, still uncertain. She shuffles sheet music in her hands, rescued from the old choir room when Mr Ryerson had been fired and before it became a computer lab. (With no Rachel Berry living and breathing and surviving these halls, there’s no glee and Santana runs occasional study sessions to make up for Mr Shue’s abysmal Spanish.)

"What were you planning next, mind if I join?" There’s enough head cheerleader energy in her tone that they give in. But three songs later, Quinn cracks a joke and they laugh just a little at her and timidly say they would be in the auditorium again on Monday lunch.

Singing at lunch time expands into a small pulsing club in the background of the school. Artie trails in after a while, big eyes always fixed on Tina. When Santana and Brittney finally kiss and make up (quite literally) and start to hold hands down corridors with shy giggles and barely there confidence, Quinn hugs the life out of her two best friends and drags them along too. Sometimes Finn pokes his head around the door and plays the drums, graceful there in a way he’s not at anything else.

It’s casual. It’s never going to be anything more- the titles Quinn will list on her college applications will be cheer leading ones, not glee competitions. But in this life, in every life, it’s just the right type of community she needs. Tina and Mercedes come for their sleepovers sometimes, where Tina puts temporary coloured streaks in everyone’s hair. Mercedes and Quinn alternate churches on a Sunday morning and take each other out for brunch afterwards. For her next birthday, Artie and Finn buy them all tickets to go see Wicked in the theatre in Columbus, and Quinn gets the gift of seeing live theatre for the second time in her life. If one exposure had focused her driven energy towards musical theatre at 7, it’s this trip and these people that makes it more and more like a reality.

That summer Tina joins their community theatre, and plays a mighty Carrie all summer long, while Quinn and Santana trade insults as Sue and Chris. Britney is made dance captain. On opening night, the whole experience feels like flying.

Miss Pillsbury sits them down, and piles Santana’s arms full of law school material after a year of arguing with homophobes and scouring pages of legislation to make sure she could one day make Britt’s dreams all come true had made her realise the power of her sharp tongue. Brittney gets handed numbers of tutors in town and pamphlets about repeating grades which the other girls bin, and pledge to get her through the next two years of high school themselves. In the fake privacy of her glass walled office, Quinn pushes the brochures of cheerleading at Ohio state back across the table at the ginger woman, and voices her dreams out loud for the first time in a serious capacity. There’s no Rachel and Kurt here, no drama programmes already lurking in the drawers. But a week later she’s ordered in all the brochures and points out all the best programmes to Quinn, including which ones may enjoy her unusual credentials. The five letters are emblazed in gold on a black background, and something settles correctly in her chest. NYADA.

The musical before their senior year is Heather’s, and Chandler is the role perfect for her after McKinley had provided Quinn with three of the best years of improv work as a bonafide head bitch. It’ll be lifeboat she’ll sing as an audition song later that year for Carmen Tibideaux though. Russel and Judy think she’s going to Ohio state with Finn and getting engaged at graduation, spending that summer at a real estate internship. Finn still talks about her dreams like they’re a hobby despite the drama school applications she fills out, still looks at her like he’s 14 and she hangs the stars in the sky. She’s worked out by now why it all feels like method acting but can’t bring herself to tell him. There’s not a flaw in her audition song- if Russel, if Finn is the captain, she’s going overboard one of these days.

In her interview, Carmen starts with a piercing glance. "I’ll be frank, Miss Fabray. You are far from our usual applicant." Her gaze travels down Quinn from her high ponytail to the yellow and black plaid dress, worn to get the right vibe for her song choice, down her long athletic legs. "From small town America, for a start. Head cheerleader but community theatre credentials. An application essay all about how you’ve been lying to your parents for most of your life, camouflaging ambition. What makes you want this so badly when it’s so foreign to all you know?"

And Quinn had practiced interview technique with Mercedes, as she’d mastered the art of down the phone interview technique with recording companies. And Finn had told her to smile and talk about her strengths, like he had to for his football scholarship. But Brittney, her first real friend, had told her to talk about things like she meant them. So she tells Carmen about Matilda, about Russel and Judy’s countless cruel comments about anyone not fitting their cookie cutter religion mould, about watched Brittney dance with her head in the clouds but feet so sure on the ground, about late night chats high in the rafters of the Lima youth theatre about what it is to perform, about the afternoon Artie taught them all how to rap until they were a messy pile of laughs, about dancing on a field in front of thousands at cheer nationals and the past summer, acting till her heart was full to burst on closing night.

"I’m sure in some other life I’m happy with the idea of Lima forever- maybe I’m even knocked up here really young or desperate for prom queen like my sister was," she concludes, out of breath almost from the adrenaline and her answer. "But I am convinced I can go further than here."

Carmen smiles. There’s a few other more practical questions, but soon it’s all over. "Thank you, Miss Fabray. I’m confident you would be quite the unique addition to our freshmen class."

Quinn thanks her and inside Lucy beams. Then she walks out to Santana waiting in her car with a kind but snarky comment and they drive to breadsticks to celebrate with their friends. She knows her world will end before she makes it near New York in August, when the OSU letters she didn’t apply for never come and she leaves a good boy behind her in the dirt. But for now, she closes her eyes and listens to her friend hum along to the radio. She might just have done it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for Rachel’s story and their all important meeting ;)


	2. all the difference and none at all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rachel grows up on stages in New York and ends up at NYADA, where she meets a certain blonde. The rest is history- or just the rest of this chapter. Thank you so much for the response to the first chapter, hope you guys continue to enjoy! (Disclaimer: idk how realistic Rachel's career or NYADA is here. But this is glee fanfic, so, like, take it for what it is.)

Rachel Berry’s path to stardom starts like this: Hiram and Leroy settle down in a small town in Indiana and get to work making a family with a surrogate who sings like an angel and blesses them with a dark haired bundle of joy. Rachel learns to crawl, then sing, then walk, then dance, then run and at age 3, small for her age and already with the attitude of an adored only child, she is ready to make her mark on the world at large- at day care. But all the pre-Ks turn her away, reluctant to let Rachel talk too fast and too much about her two daddies to the other kids. So the Berry’s do what is much more sensible- they put in for Lee to get a transfer and the company moves them to New York City.

Their house in the city is smaller and much more expensive than middle America would ever be- but they’re happy their daughter is less likely to be hate crimed. Rachel comes home from preschool and talks about her friends having all sorts of families and she triumphantly drags her desk partner Noah to the gate to meet her Daddy when he picks her up one day. "He only has one mommy. So I said he could borrow a little bit of daddy from me".

In every life Rachel ends up a performer early- she’d watched Funny Girl on the plane when they’d moved and dances and sings to audiences of teddies in all her free time. Vocal lessons and kids theatre and ballet classes are all on their doorstep. Rachel is just as talented here. But the fact of the matter is this- when you enter talent competitions in Lima, an old lady pats you on the head. When she enters them in NYC, even at 5 years old Hiram comes home clutching stacks of business cards.

They get her an agent. There’s no point in waiting- every single toy in Rachel’s room has joined her audience and her teachers mention discreetly that their little girl sings constantly to the point of distraction in her classes. On a clear spring day, Hiram takes his impossibly small daughter to stand in front of a row of casting directors. Rachel is solemn in her plaid dress with her hair pushed back from her face, clutching her own headshot with white knuckles. Then she gets on massive stage and fills it with a stage presence he didn’t know she possessed. A week later, they get the call about Matilda. Rachel gets to celebrate with a pancake stack bigger than her whole being at the restaurant they take her to.

Hiram stays to work at his hospital and Leroy convinces the company he can work remotely after his multi-slide PowerPoint attesting to the fact. At temple, Rachel chases Noah around the playground and at school she chats happily to her peers, but the other Matildas- they’re her first real friends. They do everything together that long year on the road- bounce on every hotel bed and stare out plane windows, cheer each other on from the side lines and sneak sweets under the table when they’re home-schooled. Every time Rachel gets to stand on the stage in her little school girl costume and get a standing ovation, her heart swells two sizes in her great love affair with the stage.

LeRoy watches his daughter’s wide eyed passion in it all, and talks to the other parents as they travel. After the tour, fellow Matilda Marley is going back to her quiet little hometown- this has been quite the adventure but she’s close to evaporating with tiredness and needs a break. Claire’s mom says this has helped her to work out her daughter wants to be a dancer, not a singer. Some of the kids are going back to their local theatre troupes, brimming with stories of life on the road. But as their last stop comes in just shy of Rachel’s ninth birthday, she clambers into her Dad’s lap and looks up with bright eyes. "What’s next?"

The answer; a few long months of elementary school to make sure Rachel is as good at times tables as she’s proving to be at performing. In the Berrys’ estimate her break could’ve lasted longer- but Rachel sees the casting announcement peeking out of her agents folder while in the cab home from a TV commercial shoot, and confronts her parents with it that night.

"Daddies, when we’re you going to tell me about les mis?" She demands, arms crossed, channelling Matilda.

They exchanged looks. They’d hoped Rachel would be happy to go back to normal life for a while longer.

"I am extremely lucky to be below average height for my age as it allows me to play younger casting ages. You are, of course, aware of this."

"Yes, darling. And?"

"I would make an excellent Cosette and the les mis revival is casting and you didn’t tell me!’ She stamps her foot, an action at odds with her verbose vocabulary. Her daddies have the grace to look a little guilty, which changes to resignation after 17 slides of Rachel’s PowerPoint, which includes a variety of options of the 16 bars of castle on a cloud she should perform to maximise her chances. They relent and agree to let her audition - Rachel’s IT teacher said she couldn’t seem to apply herself to the subject, but it seems she simply needs the motivation to care.

A few months later she’s covered in make-up muck and winning hearts over in her limited stage time, though she’s forced to do more times tables just as a precaution.

Noah doesn’t get it when she talks about lighting and stage doors, and her timid attempts at friendship with boy playing Gavroche don’t go anywhere near as well as they did with the Matilda kids back in the day. She hangs around in the older stars’ dressing rooms when they aren’t on stage instead, and learns how to apply makeup and use some colourful language as a result. She loves Les Mis- it gets her to the Tony’s when the show wins best revival, at which Hiram almost faints dead because okay, his daughter is doing this now and likely forever. At the end of elementary they move her to Professional Children’s School, because Rachel’s poor teachers are sick of her getting up to show of her dance moves half way through art lessons.

Next up is a smaller ensemble part, but Rachel loves Louisa in the Sound of Music more than anything. She’s 13 now and still able to play younger because of her height- but she’s the same age as the kid playing Friedrich. Her and Blaine go to school together and forge a friendship through complaints about geometry, mothering the younger kid actors in the intervals and trying coffee from every shop a mile radius from the theatre, despite the fact neither of them have the taste buds for it yet. He comes out to her after one such trip as they trample snow into the carpets backstage. Rachel gives him a wide grin, and drags him ask the actor playing Rolfe how he got a boyfriend.

Kurt- fresh in New York to film an NBC show they say is going to be the next hit- enters her world while she’s 15, rehearsing for ‘A little night music’ each day and spending time with Blaine and her fellow von traps where possible. That summer they spend all in the city is one of her favourites in memory- the older cast members she’s with at the time take the three of them out to dinner sometimes and try to teach these teen stars all they’ll need to know to be world ready. Rachel gets a feeling that Kurt has had real world experience in a different way- he talks about Ohio with a bit of a wince in his voice. Rachel can’t do anything to fix his memories of taunts and teases, missing mothers- but tries to give him a better outlook on the future. She proudly takes him to meet her fathers properly, letting he and Blaine get thoroughly tortured in the process when they get ‘the talk’ from Hiram and Leroy- something Burt is grateful for.

It’s Burt who sits them down while they’re round at the Hummel’s flat studying for tests, and asks them about college. "Not going," says Blaine, sticking his tongue out in concentration at his physics worksheet. His career had launched with Sound of Music, and Rachel has seen the pile of scripts on mum’s kitchen table to know he’s already having enough difficulty trying to pick his next move without thinking of higher education.

"If you want to marry my kid one day, you’ll go eventually." Burt responds, earning an uneasy grin from the dark haired boy.

"What about you, Rachel?" He turns his gentle glance her way. Kurt is all NYC after a year or so there, but Burt has the grounding of a small town upbringing still hanging on his gaze.

"My fathers want me to. At this point, one more show and I’d be established enough to take the break for it." Rachel gets paparazzied sometimes, she’s been to her fair share of award shows, teen vogue labelled her one to watch last year. She has her next project under wraps- but she visits the SAB dorms that the ballet kids at school live in sometimes, listens to Marley talk about college applications when they facetime, sees the city adopt flocks of wide eyed kids every year. She loves the stage - but it might be nice.

(She leaves that evening with a stack of college brochures that Burt had started collecting early.)

A year and a half of an award winning turn as Lydia Deetz later and surviving the scariest audition of her life in front of Carmen Tibideaux (which had ended with a solemn reminder that previous celebrity would have no bearing on her treatment at college), she’s standing with Kurt staring up at the admissions building.

All around them the freshmen class of NYADA are grabbing keys, hugging parents and dragging bags off to dorms with hope and ambition writ plain on their faces. Rachel wonders, fleetingly, what it would be like to arrive in the city for the first time at 18. She feels pity for them, having to learn to how to work the subway and which Starbucks near Broadway to avoid. She can’t even imagine what the uncertainty of it all would be like. This Rachel Berry has already seen her name in lights.

"Come on." Kurt says and drags her up the steps into registration. "Are you excited?" He asks in the queue, practically vibrating in place.

"It’ll certainly be a new experience that will expand our horizons."

Kurt knows how to read her well enough, now, to hear the nervousness beneath her words. “That’s a good thing, I promise you. I’d still be in Ohio without expanding mine,” he reassures.

“Of course! But it is hard to know what true immersion in the college life will be like. We hardly had a regular high school experience.”

“No, we went to school in New York and started living our dreams early. We did one better.” He smirks at her. “And lets be real, the ballerinas could party hard, when they had the time.”

Rachel smiles too, thinking of nights taking timer cam photos in empty subway stations and celebrating countless 18th birthdays in their last months of school. Before she can respond to her friend, Kurt is turning to give his name to the frazzled looking student behind the desk. Rachel does the same, and all too soon Kurt is waving goodbye and promising to meet her for coffee at their agreed time that afternoon as Burt drags luggage off to his dorm. Rachel stares at her own keys, brings his reassurances to the forefront of her mind, and goes to find her fathers.

Two hours of exhausting moving later, the last gold star fairy light is pinned in place to her cork board and the Berry men stare around at her half of her new room. Her roommate hasn’t arrived yet, buts it’s okay- the privacy is nice. Hiram has tears in his eyes as they hug. "You know we’re close by, if you need anything, but I have a feeling you’ll be just fine." Rachel nods into his shoulder. "We’re so proud of all you’ve achieved- you make this experience your own, just like you’ve always done."

Her Dad wraps his arms around them both. "You’re our superstar. To us you’re already amazing- become even better here, okay?”

She nods vigorously, so solemn for a second that Leroy sees the same little girl who auditioned for Matilda all those years ago. After a few rounds of ‘love yous’ and ‘call for dinner in a week or two’, they’re gone. Before she can even contemplate her past and cast her mind to the future in this unfamiliar place filled with all her things (as she’d like to do for the sake of her future memoirs, obviously), there’s a knock on the door and her roommate with three brothers in tow enters the room.

Julia is an acting major, fresh out of her public performing arts high school in Houston, and Rachel helps her drag boxes from the hall while they chat amicably. She feels almost shy telling her about Broadway, but Julia just stands and wipes her brow, and asks if she’s met any honest to God celebrities yet.

‘Mostly Broadway people, I’ll admit" Rachel responds with a wry smile.

"Get back to me when you met Robert Pattinson." They’ll be good roommates. Soon after she leaves Julia to finish unpacking while her three brothers tease her, and she heads to meet Kurt. As she stands at their agreed meeting spot looking around at the crowds- lots of parents having dropped their kids skirt among the usual New York throng- she finally spots his distinctive style walking towards her. And then her mouth hangs open. Beside him is the prettiest girl she has ever seen.

Her blonde hair is pushed back from her face by sunglasses before hitting her shoulders in waves, and she’s wearing an oversize cardigan and blue denim shorts which give way to the longest pair of legs Rachel has ever seen. She’s talking animatedly to Kurt and he seems equally as enchanted by her presence as they make their way towards her. Rachel looks down in horror at her own attire, gym shorts and an old sound of music show hoodie and starts praying to God, Jewish or otherwise, to rescue her from this encounter. Clearly she’d missed Temple too much for Him to care- Kurt spots her and drags the blonde girl by the hand the last way towards her at the coffee shop entrance. The colour is rapidly draining from the blonde’s face as they approach, her expression some blend of panic and awe.

Kurt is seemingly oblivious but pulls on the blondes hand with a little more force. "Rach! How was the move?"

"Tiring. Despite that, my room has a charming view of campus and my roommate seems like a perfectly lovely actress." Rachel responds, staring at the blonde girl who is smooth skinned and even more beautiful up close. "H-how was yours?" She says distractedly.

"I’m pretty sure my roommate is very straight but in a dumb puppy way. Burt made me carry so many of the boxes, called it strength training for lifting girls in dance classes." Rachel hears no words he says and Kurt finally puts her out of her misery. "Where are my manners? Quinn, this is Rachel Berry. Rachel, Quinn Fabray. She’s a musical theatre freshmen too and once starred opposite me in a beautiful Ohio production of Legally Blonde."

It takes every single ounce of a lifetime of Broadway acting for Rachel to appear normal. "Nice to meet you, Quinn. Are you knew to New York?"

She asks mainly because the taller girl looks spooked. "Yeah, I am. Nice to meet you too, Rachel Berry." She gives a genuine smile despite her otherwise odd behaviour. "I’ve got to go leave my CV in a few places this afternoon, so I’ll maybe see you around?" She asks the question to Kurt and he grins at her.

"Course. Come meet my boyfriend sometime this week?"

"I’d love to. I’ll bring you to see Britt and Santana too, they’ll be moved in next week."

Kurt smiles and says his goodbyes as the blonde disappears back into the throng, Kanken backpack bouncing with her step.

"Shall we?" Says Kurt, linking her arm and dragging Rachel into the shop. She can barely stand with thoughts of the blonde in her head, so she lets herself be carried to the till and lets Kurt place her order. Even in a life of mild celebrity, Quinn is the prettiest girl she’s ever seen.

She sees Quinn again two days later, at a mixer for the freshman class that Kurt had pulled out of for a date with Blaine. She gives his roommate Brody a wave, and goes on the hunt for Julia- she said they could meet up here when Rachel was back from a meeting with her agent. Rachel finally spots the sleek ginger hair of her roommate and heads towards the group of girls she’s talking to- releasing too late she’s walking straight into a group conversation with Quinn Fabray, who had turned her brain into mush on their first encounter. How was she supposed to meet people in their year when she had that effect on her? Still, Julia sees her and pulls her into the circle, doing the necessary introductions to Jackie (another acting major), a dance major called Lilly and her roommate, Quinn Fabray.

Rachel looks more human tonight in a black floral play suit, and it gives her enough confidence to talk to these girls like she’s not melting at the thought of looking down Quinn’s athletic form in her white short sleeve and tight little dress. They talk about New York and Rachel gives them one or two tips, about where they went to high school- performing arts schools across the board expect Quinn, who went to public high school in Ohio- about what they’re looking forward to. "I hear the dance teacher for Musical theatre is a bitch," Jackie says conspiratorially. She looks between Rachel and Quinn "I feel bad for you two."

Quinn nods with a grimace. "Yeah, I hear she likes to research the freshmen and ask them to perform what she’d expect you to be able to do, based on your background. Can’t wait to be doing back hand springs and round offs in class on Tuesday," she says mostly to her roommate who flushes with sympathy.

This was news to Rachel, though she knew Cassie July was tough. "I’ll start praying now they ask me to do some ballet, and not some Beetlejuice."

Julia cracks a joke about Cassandra having to queue up ‘Jump in the line’ on her phone, and the conversation turns to favourite types of music before they split up to network more. It’s an enjoyable evening altogether- and at the end Quinn sidles up to her and smiles.

"I know we don’t know each other yet, but it was nice to have a familiar face here tonight. Nearly cried when Kurt said he was skipping."

"That’s the power of Blaine for you. We’ve known each other for years, he’s very persuasive." Rachel thinks back to Blaine convincing their parents to let them go to post show dinners with the older cast at only 14 fondly.

"Yeah- we did brunch yesterday. It’s nice to see Kurt so happy- when I met him he was mostly closeted and staring at Sam Evans in his costume shorts."

"Ah, youth theatre. Didn’t that make romance scenes hard?"

Quinn chuckles and it’s deep, like her voice, which Rachel is convinced makes her even more gorgeous. "You know, on reflection I wasn’t making things easier either. The girl playing Vivienne was two years older than me and had gorgeous dark brown eyes and a quick wit and turns out I didn’t want to be like her, I probably wanted to be with her." And with that, Quinn gives her a wink and a goodnight and goes off to find Lilly and link arms. Rachel thinks she might die before Cassandra July ever gets the chance to kill her.

"Now, " Cassandra July starts, "I’ve never had to watch cheerleading championship videos for a freshman class before. And I’m hoping the real thing lives up to it. Miss Fabray?" Quinn nods, then catapults herself through a series of leaps, jumps and moves Rachel assumes is her solo from cheer nationals she mentioned the other night. Compared to the jazz routines or musical choreography she’d had the others in the class bust out, Quinn looks impressive, and it shows on Cassandra’s face as she gives the blonde a quick nod. "Thank you."

She approaches Rachel down the line in a minute and there’s a steel in her gaze. Cassandra does not reel off a bunch of ballet moves as she’d hoped. It’s not even Beetlejuice. The woman levels a glare at her and says, "Rachel Berry. Child star, right? Give me something from Matilda."

Rachel nearly falls through the floor. It’s been ten years and she performs the best she can, but they’re easy steps designed for little girls and she knows it looks pathetic to do them at college. Cassandra looks like she’s stifling a laugh. "Yeah, that’s enough of that."

"Miss, I can do much better things than that." The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them, a force of habit after years of promising improvement to directors and choreographers. Cassandra’s amusement continues. "Can you, Berry? You sure you didn’t miss the basics while you were chasing fame?"

“I’m quite sure I didn’t.” she meets Cassandra’s eyes. Rachel Berry raised in Lima didn’t know how to step down from challenge any more than this Rachel, with her actually earned confidence, does.

The older teacher looks around to her TAs in belief at the freshman’s defiance. "Okay Berry, you have till Christmas to work out how a little Broadway baby like yourself will perform a variation of my choosing. And work out some way to flip like Miss Fabray did. Or you’ll be looking at a fail."

She moves on to the next in their class, who gets asked to perform their routine from their senior dance studio showcase. Kurt has to do a lift on his turn, but Rachel sees none of it. Rachel is used to big displays of emotion, but has to fight like hell to hold hot, stingy tears in, and all but bolts from the studio at the end. She’d have succeeded in running all the way to the dorms if it wasn’t for the soft touch at her elbow. She turns to Quinn, almost sick with jealousy at the sight of her face now that she’s in Cassandra’s good graces.

“What do you want?”. Her voice sounds thick in her throat.

"Hey, I was hoping we could maybe meet up sometime? I’ve never taken formal acting classes and I feel like you’d give good tips."

Rachel stares at her in bewilderment. Quinn, to her credit, looks undeterred and continues.

"Maybe I could pay you back with cheerleading lessons." She deadpans and Rachel catches up with the kindness she’s being shown.

"I’d like that." She manages. It sounds smaller than she’d like it to. Kurt appears at their elbow and gives them a sympathetic smile. "Lunch?". She lets herself be dragged by them to the lunch hall and resigns herself to more trouble than she’d realised she’d signed up for.

The rest of the week flies and Cassandra is the only dark spot in the otherwise new bright lights of college. She’s never felt challenged and pushed like this, with teachers who talk passionately about concepts she’s excited to explore. She puts her Broadway-built tolerance for lack of sleep to good use, lounging around the halls of dorms and getting to know people. College is a steep learning curve - by week three she has figured out her ambition bumps into people sometimes, and that her single minded determination needs toned down in an attempt to make friends- but this Rachel Berry has been sat on dressing room tables and stood at stage doors her entire life. She knows how to talk to people, and has never had to see them as her enemies. By the time she’s chatting at high speed to her fathers about everyone she’s met after her first month, they’re pretty sure Rachel will be okay.

She and Quinn start to practice together on Sunday afternoons. Underneath the vaulted wooden ceilings of a dance studio, Quinn patiently walks her through the tricks she’ll need to master to impress Cassie, and Rachel offers her gentle corrections on old monologues in return. As the leaves turn brilliant orange and red outside the lofty windows, they settle into a routine, sitting on the floor running scenes until Quinn goes from good to almost flawless then tumbling and tricks ‘that would make Coach Sue proud’ by Quinn’s estimation. Its improvement in more ways than one. The bond they’re forming is hard to put into words – it starts with conversations between class, then in coffee shops, then lounging on the floor of Kurt’s dorm. By the time they’re arriving bundled up in scarves for rehearsals she’s used to hearing their friends utter their names in one breath- Quinn and Rachel, Rachel and Quinn. (She’s only distracted looking at the blonde’s lips every one in three conversations.)

It’s on one evening at Kurt’s dorm with a few of their friends that his roommate Brody enters with a glint in his eye and a group invite to the upperclassmen Halloween party. Before long she finds herself with Julia pulling her head to one side while her roommate finishes the vampire bites on her neck. Seemingly satisfied, she pulls back and looks Rachel dead in the eyes. "If you get the chance tonight, hook up with Quinn."

Rachel looks back at her in shock. She thought her crush on the blonde was subtle at most. "I- I’m not..."

"Oh please, Berry. We all see how you look at her, not to mention the jealously you get when she tells you what she’s been up to at NYU parties." Julia scoffs. Quinn’s friends at other colleges in the city had meant she was never short of parties to go to or lips to kiss, something she said they called ‘shaking off the small town’. And Rachel would be lying if she said she didn’t get a little jealous when the other girls they knew hounded her for details of her hook ups between lectures. Especially when it became clear that all those hook ups were girls.

Julia isn’t done, as she attacks her with a powder brush. "And she’s definitely into you too."

In a half hour, Julia pulls her out to meet the others and lets Brody bring them to the loft apartment where the party is on. It’s pumping with adrenaline when they arrive, college kids dotted around in groups with half empty cups or on the make shift dance floor where sofas have been pushed back. The apartment and booze belong to a junior Brody has been screwing apparently, and they all collectively thank her for hosting when she passes them, well on her way to wasted.

On the edge of an overdose of liquid confidence two hours later, she slides out on to the fire escape where people have been escaping to smoke all night. It’s quieter now, as people leave for the next party in the row or retreat to dark corners. She gulps in the night air and it feels like New York is her city in a whole new way as she lives the stories she’d let older castmates tell her like folklore her whole life. She’s lost in thought when Quinn slides down next to her. City lights glint off her red plastic devil horns, eyes darkened with eyeliner and the atmosphere, glitter stuck in blonde curls.

“Penny for your thoughts?” she says, and oh, the alcohol coursing through her system makes Quinn’s low voice sound impossibly sexy.

“I think I’m falling in love with New York all over again.” Rachel says, barely more than a murmur- the bubble of air between them seems reverent and she doesn’t dare disturb it. She watches as Quinn’s hazel eyes trace over the scenery she’d been staring at.

Her gaze trails back to Rachel when she next speaks. “You know what? Me too.”

“With the city?”

Quinn smirks. “Something like that.”

She feels her heartbeat hammering in her chest. They’re sitting so close on the narrow step, and Julia’s words are vibrating in her head, and sometimes she catches Quinn’s lingering gaze, sun drenched in the practice room, and, and, and Rachel leans in. Her hand meets Quinn’s cheek, while Quinn threads her own hand into Rachel’s dark hair. The last thing she sees is a New York reflection in Quinn’s wide pupils and then, their lips meet. And its everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, let me know if you enjoyed! Want to see Rachel and Quinn's first date? Stick around for the next chapter early this week. :)


	3. take your childhood idol on a date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter covers first dates, the deal with Quinn's parents, and the rest of freshmen year. What's not to love? Thank you all for the support on this story so far and leave me a comment if you enjoy this chapter!

Quinn slides the key into the door of the apartment, clutching hangover-cure takeout from the dinner down the block. It’s a little after midday and she’s hoping they’re awake. Quinn would’ve shared this little NYC apartment with them, but when the NYADA scholarship had offered her housing she would’ve been stupid to decline- she’s got a key and an open invitation to Britt and Santana’s tiny apartment so they can experience the city together, like they’d dreamed up during lazy Lima sleepovers.

Sliding the door closed behind her, the light streaming through lazily closed curtains reveals her two best friends are still in bed sleeping off their Halloween.

"Get up, I’ve brought food!" She calls out, then ducks out of the range of the bedroom doorway as a shoe comes hurtling out, thrown by Santana as she mutters half coherent curses. Brittney comes bounding out in her pyjamas after moments and smiles sleepily. "Good Halloween?"

She smirks, memories swirling of Rachel’s gin-fizz kisses, the cold of a city fire escape pressed to her back, a black dress slipping up toned legs, whispered compliments into her hair . "You could say that."

There’s a hurried thump in the doorway as Santana makes it to the narrow doorway. "Oh my God did you and Matilda get it on?"

Brittney looks Quinn up and down and decides for herself. “You two totally kissed,” she says, clapping her hands together and jumping on the spot a little before turning to her hungover girlfriend. “You owe me twenty bucks.”

"Just because you’re psychic- that’s unfair," Santana bemoans, before seemingly realising what Quinn said for a second time. "Wait, shit, Q. Was it good?"

“I mean, we just made out,” she blushes deeply, thinking about not only making out on the fire escape, but on the dancefloor and on the subway back to the dorms, and then once more for good measure in Rachel’s doorway, “but it was _really_ good.”

Santana moves past her to inspect the take out boxes on their tiny kitchen counter, filled with greasy delights. "Well, RIP to Quinn-power lesbian- Fabray. She lived a short but glorious life, may she rest in peace."

Quinn grabs a pancake from her hand. "Stop that, you don’t know that."

"You’re not going to want to see anyone else but Rachel now, though" Brittney says as she pours them all juice, displaying her unfailing knack for reading Quinn. They really all know that what Santana says is true- her few months of glorious freedom in her sexuality after a Lima upbringing would be coming to an end if the fact Rachel Berry would not leave her head was any indication. "I’m taking her on a date this Sunday." Quinn admits.

"So all those one on one practises weren’t dates already Q?" Santana teases as her pile of pancakes was disappearing.

"Those are professional!" Indignation gives way to laughter in her tone though, and Britt says they’re happy for her and that maybe she can try with Rachel what they did last night- and at that point Quinn slaps her hands over her ears, and wishes her best friends were ever so slightly less confident in sharing their sex life with her.

As Rachel kisses her lightly goodbye after practice and heads to get ready for dinner, Quinn’s accepted that there was never a merely professional relationship between them- the only difference with this week is that Quinn can stare more openly at Rachel’s ass as she does her best to master back hand springs, and Rachel caresses her face as she reads the lines of the lover in Quinn’s script for a group project. (How she’ll ever act it as well with Brody, she has no idea.)

Rachel picks a vegan restaurant for them to go to, and she spends the whole subway ride there trying to remember how to breathe at the slight of Rachel Berry in a tiny tartan mini dress, talking animatedly about her progress on Cassandra July’s punishing variation for the end of term. By the time they’re seated and Rachel is making Budda bowl recommendations and stealing glances through her dark lashes, Quinn has borrowed enough confidence from her old cheerleader persona to carry a conversation with the girl who is essentially her best friend, before anything else.

It’s nice to have the time for real, one on one conversations beyond the surface level chatter they have everyday between classes. She learns that Rachel had never been to the ocean and feels guilty that her parents vacation money has gone towards her career over the years, that she went on four dates with teen movie star Jessie St James and dumped him when he called her Rebecca to paparazzi. For her part, Quinn shares stories about going sheet music shopping with Tina and Mercedes in Lima’s tiny record store after school, about the drama from their youth theatre production of Heathers senior year. Even though Rachel shared her dating history, she doesn’t mention Finn. (Flashes of his heartbroken face come to her sometimes, and that’s not first date material.) In fact, a lot of her journey from NYADA audition to august in New York is mega depressing, and she toys with the idea of skirting around it all, keeping up the illusions she’s perfectly normal. But being with Rachel doesn’t feel like acting, and it’s in the middle of one of the stories that she gives it away.

"Of course, I wouldn’t have had to sneak out if it had been two weeks later but this was when I still lived at my parents-"

Rachel furrows her brow. "Did you not live with your parents before you moved here?"

Here we go, she thinks. "Uh, no. I lived with Santana from May of senior year. My parents, they, ah- they disowned me."

Rachel’s eyes go wide in shock and anger, the vegan ice cream she’s eating for dessert forgotten. "Oh Quinn, I’m so sorry. Because you’re a lesbian?" Rachel has a certain bluntness to her, and its in full force while she’s occupied with righteous anger on her date’s behalf.

Quinn laughs. "No actually, though I did tell them that once I had all my stuff in my car, just to add a little scandal to their lives. Actually, my NYADA acceptance letter came and they found it before me, and it wasn’t pretty."

"But this is one of the most prestigious drama schools in the country!"

"Yeah, but they didn’t know I applied. They didn’t know I did any sort of musical theatre stuff at all, actually." She tries to play it casually, picking at own dessert with her fork, but Rachel’s brow furrows confused. She explains the secret lessons, her dance studio friendship with Britt, singing at lunchtimes and summers where her parents weren’t sober enough to care where she was. Rachel drops her spoon to the plate.

"So they didn’t approve of the arts as a career, at all?"

Quinn pauses before replying, drawing swirls with her fork in the melted remains. "You know, when I was doing all of this growing up that’s what I thought. But it wasn’t just that. It was all about control. I don’t think they would’ve been any more happy if I told them I wanted to work in a lab, or do medicine, or go to college in LA." She sets her fork down to stare more intently at her date, and Rachel’s dark brown eyes are absorbing every word now she’s over the shock. It’s comforting, in a way. "I don’t think they would’ve been happy with me doing anything other than state college then an engagement, so that I could have a picket fence life by 25 and host them for alternate Christmases with my sister."

Empathy breaks on Rachel’s face as she reaches across and grabs her hands. "A lot of my life has been about control- planning auditions and press releases and schedules. I know it’s too early for this, but I intend for us to be a success-" she pauses embarrassed but Quinn nods for her to continue- "and so I’m promising to never try and control you." She finishes with sincerity and oh, Quinn could kiss her right there, passion clouding her eyes. They leave the restaurant soon after, and these doorway kisses are sweet, vanilla infused.

Dating Rachel Berry in the New York autumn feels like she’s steeped into a home made rom com. They eat lunches on campus perched on each others laps, take long walks under thick coats and talk about everything and nothing under the Broadway lights, dress up for cocktail nights and off Broadway plays.. By thanksgiving, Quinn has met the Berry men who had welcomed her into their apartment with warmth and a plate piled high with tofurkey, and Rachel has met Santana and Brittney after an afternoon of binging criminal minds. (Quinn had watched her interact with her two best friends with interest- it seemed like Brittney and Rachel would make an unlikely pair of friends while Santana had regarded her with mistrust until Rachel laughed at all her snide comments on the episode and given her a hug- and after that, there’s no hating Rachel Berry).

The term speeds by as assignment deadlines and performances pile up like the snow on the pavements. Quinn and Kurt’s monologue for their seminar gets top marks while Rachel is graced with the honour of singing in the winter showcase. All in all, the entire freshmen class are shaking snowflakes from their hair and practically vibrating with the need to celebrate as soon as their last class passed- a nine am on Friday morning with one Cassandra July.

Rachel stares the older lady dead in the eyes with the sort of hard edged confidence Santana had tried to teach her when they went out for a double dinner date at thanksgiving, and prepares to dance her best. The solo goes smoothly, Rachel’s natural talent shining through and aided by the tips the roommate Julia and Brittney had given, and she finishes with her old Matilda choreography with every cheerleading trick Quinn could cram in. Quinn can’t help but stare enticed by her girlfriend as she moved her body with control and grace. Even Cassandra can only offer the merest of corrections and wish her a happy holidays at the end of the performance- and as her girlfriend launches into her arms, a hot tiny ball of pure energy and affection, Quinn can’t help but silently thank Cassie July for bringing them together, in a way.

They spill out onto the streets for a celebratory lunch before members of their freshmen class would head back home, and Quinn holds Rachel’s hand under the table the whole way through, sneaking kisses between fries. All around, her classmates and friends are carrying conversations at the top of their lungs (as theatre majors really only know how to do), retelling their favourite stories of their first few months and making sweeping promises to thank each other in their Tony speeches years from now. If Quinn tears up as they make giddy toasts with 2 dollar lemonade, only Rachel shows she notices, and her own eyes are a little watery in pure disbelief at their lives.

It’s the start to a pretty perfect Christmas break, which she spends celebrating a weird mashup of Hanukkah and Christmas with the Berrys. She dries dishes with LeRoy in the kitchen and helps Hiram with the general knowledge questions for the hospital benefit quiz, gets to see scrap books of a tiny gap toothed Rachel in her first magazine advertisement, shows them all her favourite movies. They spend the actual 25th in the Berry apartment with a roaring fire and belly laughter- a world away from the formal church services and stiff mannered dinners that form a Fabray Christmas. She almost doesn’t miss Judy’s stuffing. Later on, the two men retire to bed, leaving Quinn and Rachel in the warm glow of the Christmas tree while staring out at the New York skyline view afforded to them by the living room window to share their own presents.

"Okay, okay me first," Rachel says with shining eyes, bouncing down into her position on the sofa again with a gift bag.

Quinn takes the blue sparky bag and opens it, revealing a whole selection of gifts- an embroidered sweater she’d been eyeing up on Instagram, perfume, a framed picture of the two of them out for dinner with Kurt, Blaine, Britt and Santana just before they’d left for the holidays, little stocking fillers of her favourite sweets. She looks up from the pile and thanks her girlfriend with a kiss, though Rachel pulls back from it and offers Quinn the envelope in her lap.

"Not done yet." She says with a nervous giggle, and when two tickets for New Year’s Eve at the top of the Standard fall out, all Quinn can do is stare reverently. She’s in stunned silence. "You have to celebrate your first New Years in New York in style, right?"

In awe, Quinn reaches for her own gift bag, keen to let it speak for her in this moment to return the gesture. Rachel tears open each wrapped present to find earrings, refill for the skincare she noticed was running low, a sports bra and leggings set and a small watercolour painting of one of their selfies that Quinn had asked a friend of Brittney’s to make. And the most important part- a slight envelope of her own, which falls into Rachel’s lap.

Her girlfriend opens it and seems confused when a picture of a young girl smiling below the Ohio theatre’s banner of Matilda stares up at her. She looks up to Quinn and back down. "Is-is this you? I was on that tour, you know..."

Laughter bubbles up. "Yeah, Rach I know. I saw you perform as Matilda that night. It’s actually why I wanted to pursue musical theatre at all actually...you inspired me." She rubs the back of her neck bashfully as Rachel stares at the picture in awe. "And by the strangest turns of fate, you’re inspiring me everyday now. And I know it’s soon, but it’s how I feel and I want to say-"

"I love you." Rachel cuts her off.

"Yeah, that." Her flash of annoyance at not getting to say it can’t hold a candle to how it feels to have Rachel say that though. "I love you".

They pull into a deep and passionate kiss then, enchanted with each other, and finally Quinn slips the gold necklace with a delicate little disk on the chain stamped with the Matilda silhouette on Rachel. The next week, as the brightness of fireworks reflect all around them and the atmosphere is heady with passion and champagne, the necklace catches Quinn’s eye and she realises her girlfriend has smuggled it among her black tie jewellery. The people around them reach the end of their countdown, and she’s drawn into the lips of her best friend and longtime inspiration and most importantly, girlfriend and the entire world stops. What a year.

Their little bubble of Christmas holidays lands back to earth with a bump as second semester begins in earnest and they sit written exams through January. Date nights consist of quizzes on directing terms and throwing their history of jazz notes across the dorm room but by the time the snow has finally melted their schedule settles back to normal and the awkward newness of the first term is replaced with college life in its fullest. They party hard and work harder, spend a fortnight in March taking Kurt everywhere they go when Blaine goes to Canada to film a supporting role in a movie, travel up state to watch Brittney’s dance team compete in April (during which Santana calls Rachel Matilda and it becomes clear the nickname might stick, much to Quinn’s horror), and console Lilly when her boyfriend cheats on her with plenty of ice cream and ‘men are trash’ sentiment.

Before long finals loom again- but not before a painful anniversary. The year anniversary of her disownment is spent skipping class to lie in Rachel’s bed at her home apartment, watching musicals in bed. After midday, Quinn starts whispering little facts about her parents- Judy had a special aprons for Christmas and thanksgiving dinner prep, Russel would sneak the Brussels sprouts off of his daughter’s plate on to hers, Frannie did the neatest French plaits. Russel tucked her into bed every night and read a few pages of one of the classics until she was nine and he stopped being sober at her bedtime. Judy liked to kiss her forehead on sick days. All Rachel does is lie and listen, stokes her hair and makes her a steaming mug of hot chocolate (not vegan) when her memories give way to hot thick tears.

"I thought I was over this." She admits brokenly.

"I don’t thing that’s the sort of thing you get over in a year. Or ever." Quinn just lets her stroke her hair then falls asleep in a little ball. Later that day Santana would waken her by banging on the door. She lies in bed and hears Rachel argue with her from the front room- "how did you get this address?" "Party time!" "Party time?! Santana I don’t think you understand the fragility of this all..." "I know Q, trust me..." "8:30, fine..." "you’re a babe, Berry!" "Hey, get out of my cupboards!"

Rachel pushed through the door back to her bedroom and Quinn peaks from under pink starry sheets. "Santana is taking us partying?"

Rachel looks confused. "You want to go?"

"We went to a party last year, when it happened. At the time it was like a victory, like I was finally on my way to being myself, finally away from their shitty parenting."

Rachel nods absentmindedly, clearly not really understanding the complexities of the relationships, both with her parents and with Santana and Brittney, which had evolved past a regular friendship a long time ago. She feels a flash of thankfulness for them all- Rachel, uncharacteristically quiet today to support her, Santana’s veiled kindness, the endless hugs she’d no doubt get from Brittney later. Quinn gets out of bed.

That night out, an NYU party Santana had scored invites to, would be the one memory they clung to, as all their free time was promptly slowed whole by end-of-year show rehearsals. The remaining weeks of freshmen year pass in a blink, and all too soon the musical theatre department is taking sweaty bows in the department production of hairspray, results are emailed through, her roommate is moving out and Quinn finds herself standing around the campus, hugging friends and classmates as they headed back for a summer of their pre-NYADA life or some sort of summer intensive. She spots Rachel with one of Julia’s brothers elbows resting on her head as she talks to her roommate’s family, and is silently thankful that they are not among the couples saying goodbyes. Santana had offered up her home for the whole summer, but two months in Lima seemed like an awfully easy way to run into her parents. Summer in the city might be quite nice.

She turns out to be right. Rachel takes a limited run in Beetlejuice while Cassandra July snaps her up as a TA for the college’s teen summer programmes. There’s a simplicity in their summer routine, a natural rhythm they fall into where days start with café shifts for Quinn, teaching classes of kids hungry for this kind of life, spending as many nights at the theatre as possible, kissing Rachel’s black lipstick off on the dressing room bench after the shows. There’s a wonderful week that Mercedes comes to stay- they find church services and karaoke nights to go to and get brunch in every little nook that Quinn has discovered through the year. Artie and Tina drift in to the city for a weekend too and they do more tourist-y things in that 72 hours than she’d done in a whole year and falls a little more in love with the place. (If she feels the missing presence of the person most dear to her from Lima, she pretends it doesn’t exist- Quinn thinks of him less now, and hopes that he does, too.)

Santana gets her way through pestering facetime calls eventually, though. She spends the last week of summer in Lima, jumping in the pool and letting Britt try and teach her the super-advanced choreography the taller blonde does now. And when Maribel pulls her into the kitchen to prep veg and asks her if she’s happy, Quinn has never felt more honest saying yes.


	4. lonely at the top

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Careers start to take off, but will it stay smooth sailing for Quinn and Rachel? Thanks for all your support so far on this story, hope you enjoy this chapter even though its ~angsty~

Rachel hits the snooze button for a third time, hunkering down beneath the sheets against the cold morning. When she hears a whispered "oh not you don’t" from the doorway she knows she’s in for it- the covers are ripped off her bed by a frustrated Kurt, already in his clothes.

"We’re going to be late if you don’t get up right now!"

"It feels like we just got home" Rachel mumbles into her pillow, and then is all but dragged off her mattress and shooed into the bathroom.

"Tech week, babe" Kurt winks and closes the bathroom door behind her. Rachel splashes some water in her face and clears the last of her sleep. It’s May of their sophomore year, somehow, and their latest NYADA production has turned all their friends into zombies, stumbling through their final rehearsals. Rachel can’t complain though- it’s been a good year. She moved into a loft apartment with Kurt, Brody and Julia, with Quinn spending almost as many nights in her bed here then she did in her scholarship sponsored dorm room (a single this year though, a fact they had been thankful for countless times). She knows she would’ve loved NYADA in any world, it’s arched hallways spilling over with the love of music and it’s spirit of hard work and high achievement, but deep down Rachel knows it’s her relationship with Quinn that’s made it beyond special. The rush of those first few months had flown seamlessly into a year and a half now of comfortable domestic bliss, sneaking kisses over piles of scores and lab notes, letting the golden glow of the sun filter over their bodies on lazy Saturday mornings, stealing away to see a Broadway show any time they could find the excuse to. They’d even gone to the Tony’s, when Rachel was invited to present an award, and she had been convinced in that moment that her girlfriend in a form fitting, strapless back gown was the most beautiful woman on the planet.

Both her and Quinn had supporting roles in the musicals, a fact they were endlessly proud of the other for achieving even if that meant their quality time together had been reduced to rushed coffee dates and falling asleep on the other’s lap.. Their run dates didn’t overlap entirely either, leaving Rachel waiting in anticipation for the night she’d get to see Quinn perform in earnest- she knew she had a solo.

While reminiscing, Rachel had managed to slide into clothes to get down to the theatres and pick up all her materials, barely unpacked from yesterday. Kurt nods at her approvingly as she emerges from her bedroom and drags her out the door and down to the bustling streets for another day of musical theatre college life, something that even the end of term exhaustion couldn’t take the joy out of.

A first costumed run through later, she’s sitting in one of the dressing rooms high up in the theatre and texting Quinn leisurely. They’re doing some ensemble corrections now and the cast with more defined roles are glad for the break.

Quinn: dance rehearsal has just run over an hour and imy:(

Rachel: u got this- one more week and we’ll be on stage. Then we’ll be together all the time again.

Quinn: can’t wait. All too soon u leave for st.louis

Rachel: shhh. We’ve got a few weeks of summer before then.

She chews her lip as she sends the last text. She’s doing a a show at the MUNY for a few weeks and is beyond excited, of course, but does feel guilty to be leaving her girlfriend behind in the city, even if Quinn had helped her prepare for the auditions and told her she was happy to see Rachel branching out. When it looks like Quinn’s not about to reply she pockets her phone and turns her attention to the conversation the other leads around her are having, humming and nodding in the appropriate places. She’d learnt early on that these were seniors who maybe harboured some resentment at Rachel’s already Broadway secure future as they got closer to embarking on their own journeys, but were nice enough to her if she kept her mouth closed. As the conversation turns to gossip about people in their year that Rachel doesn’t know, her phone buzzes again and she smiles to see Quinn’s response.

Quinn: dreamy.

Quinn: oh. My. god. Just off the phone- big news! What time are you finished?

Rachel knows Quinn has been waiting to hear back about a variety of summer theatre jobs and grins at the idea of them both working at their dreams this summer, shooting her a quick text back about where to meet. In the next run through, she gives more energy than she thought possible for tech week.

The sun is red and glinting low off of buildings by the time rehearsals finish, and she sends Kurt off to the subway as she hears the opposite direction to the main doors where her girlfriend is waiting for her. Quinn is almost vibrating in place with excitement, sporting a sundress and cardigan, looking more radiant than ever with that much emotion lighting up her features- It’s rare to see Quinn so outwardly buzzed about something.

"Well?"

"I- I got the lead!" They’re spinning and hugging now, Quinn is laughing and Rachel feels the euphoria radiating off her girlfriend.

"I am so so so proud of you, you’ll be amazing." They slow to a stop and Rachel leans back in her arms to get a better look at her face, then thinks about the auditions Quinn had told her about the last few weeks.

"The lead in what?"

"Okay okay. You know the Netflix movie version of ‘Firestarter’ everyone has been talking about? Well, a few months ago Madame Tibideaux called me into her office and I was freaked I’d like, done something wrong- but turns out she’s friends with one of the big producers behind it and they were complaining that no one had the right sort of background to do the character justice and asked her where to look or if to do open casting and then she said she thought of me and set up the appointment and then I had a few video auditions and then today I got the call! I’m gonna play a lead, Rachel!’ Quinn rattles off the explanation and is about to bounce her around again, judging by the increasing speed at which her long blonde hair had moved as her explanation progressed.

Rachel steadied her. "You’re playing the lead. In the most anticipated movie musical adaption of the year." She repeats slowly.

Quinn grins and laughs. "I can barely believe it."

"Carmen Tibideaux herself got you in to a closed casting call audition, and now you’re the lead."

"She’s known about my parents from her beginning, it’s all part of the scholarship, and Ellen in the musical is disowned by hers and then goes on this journey of self discovery, it’s kinda perf-"

"Unfair." Rachel says, cutting her off.

Quinn’s expression freezes in place, then droops. "What?"

In that moment she doesn’t know why she doesn’t try and turn it into a compilment or a misunderstanding, but some combination of shock and pure exhaustion lets her talk on. "It’s unfair. The head of the whole school selects you specially for an audition? NYADA holds their showcases for people to get scouted, to receive this sort of treatment is unprecedented."

With each word something unreadable settles over Quinn’s features. She’s heard stories from Brittney about her ability to use the ‘head cheerio’ look, and Rachel realises it must be what she’s seeing now, a short hand signal for closed off, hidden Quinn that she’d come so far from.

"I thought you’d be happy for me." There’s a quiver in her voice only detectable if you know her well. Rachel does.

"Babe, of course I am, this is huge. I just felt it necessary to point out it’s highly unorthodox." she tries to play it off, but it’s past that and Quinn knows it.

She’s shaking her head. "No, no you’re not. You’re jealous." She accuses, taking shaky step back and adding a quip, almost to herself. "Huh, imagine that. You’re already famous girlfriend is jealous you’re succeeding too." The break in voice is nearing.

"It’s not like tha-"

‘Yes it is. You know it is, Rach. Your first instinct was jealousy and self preservation. Even towards me." Quinn’s voice cracks on the final sentence and tears pool in both their eyes.

Rachel can’t even deny it- it was her first response. All the love she has for Quinn, all that they’ve spent time building couldn’t stop the bubble of competition from coming up inside of her. And technically she’s right, NYADA doesn’t do individual casting recommendations for students, it really isn’t fair- but that shouldn’t have mattered. Not when it came to the love of her life standing so bubbly and excited, telling her good news. "Quinn-" she starts but Quinn stills her words with a watery glare.

"I have to go, I was on my way to San and Britt’s to...celebrate anyway. I had just- I just wanted you to be the first to know."

She’s pretty sure she can audibly hear both their hearts shatter as Quinn draws herself to her full height and seems to find a hidden reserve of strength to turn and walk back into the crowds of the city to the subway.

The sun has set in earnest now and there’s a chill in the May air. People bustle by from all sides as offices spill their workers to the side walk, and she is paralysed, staring at the spot where Quinn disappeared. The city doesn’t feel alive, just suffocating as her tears flow. So much for her almost perfect sophomore year.

The rest of her tech week passes agonisingly slowly, with Kurt having to physically drag her around to rehearsals and Brody force feeding her lest she forgets to eat. Her conversation with Quinn dominates her every waking thought, and her only reprise is the time she spends on stage, channelling her emotions into her role- of a grieving sister. She remains professional of course- at age 13 she had insisted on still performing the week her Nana had died- but off the stage? Rachel Berry is gone, replaced with a shell of her usually chipper self. The rumours flew down dressing room benches, across rows of seats fellow students lounged on, during last minute fittings- Rachel Berry and Quinn Fabray had broken up. The rumours said that Rachel must have been dumped because she looked distraught and Quinn was apparently floating through the beginnings of her own tech week with poise and an excitement for performing, though she was tight lipped about the situation.

Technically they hadn’t. To break up, you have to talk to the person and it’s been three days of radio silence. Rachel had woken up that first awful morning to a voicemail from Santana that filled with Spanish yelling and ranting- but the point was clear despite any language barrier that Santana was rightfully angry at her for her selfish, horrible behaviour. Rachel was inclined to agree with that assessment, and every negative comment of herself she’d ever heard- seniors who called her stuck up, report cards brandishing the word ‘overzealous’, the media calling her a brat when she was little. This Rachel had never walked the halls of William McKinley, adapting to insults and letting them run off her back, letting them fuel her motivation. Instead, she crumbles.

"Selfish, selfish, selfish" Rachel muttered like a mantra, lying in her bed that weekend. She had her head half buried into the pillow, only lifting it to take the odd bite of the vegan Thai food Blaine had brought her. Her old friend sat on the bed at her back, stroking her hair on occasion and letting her talk it out- he’d been roped in when her flat mates had decided they could do no more for her.

"Hey, that’s not helpful." He says gently. It’s been at least thirty minutes and that’s as much progress as they’ve made- she didn’t speak at all for the first 10.

"It’s true though. My first response was selfishness, she didn’t deserve that." She says, muffled by the pillow .

"No, she didn’t," he concedes. "But it doesn’t make you the worst person alive, Rach."

"Everyone else seems to think so."

"And since when did you care that much what other people think of you?"

"I don’t. Jus Quinn." She lifts her face from the pillow and eats a forkful of food.

"Then why are you talking about what other people think? Quinn hasn’t told you she hates you." Blaine reasoned, and she glared at him before resuming her position.

"It’s been three days and we haven’t talked, and I overheard people say she was doing just fine without me. Speaks volumes."

"And you believe that." Blaine said flatly. She nods in response.

"Rachel," Blaine starts gently. "Do you really think this is only affecting you? Quinn’s a tough girl, you can bet she’s just putting up a front. I bet she’s just as devastated as you- I mean, she got the news of her life and can’t share it with her girlfriend," he laughs, but it lacks humour. "You’re saying you feel like a selfish, awful person, maybe you’re becoming one with each day you throw a pity party instead of trying to rectify things."

Rachel had sat up and turned to him as she’d spoken, looking scandalised. "Oh sure, tell me how sad she is. That’s making me feel better."

"You don’t need someone to make you feel better. You need someone to bring you to your senses"

He placed a hand on her leg to stop from turning away again and caught her gaze. It’s the first person she’s looked in the eyes since Quinn’s tear filled ones. "I get your point. We grew up in an industry where, where nothing is ever a level playing field, and you have to look out for number 1. You’re used to stiff competition, no wonder that came into your mind when Quinn told you the news. But all your friends and loved ones are in this cut throat world too. And if you don’t realise that you’ve got to choose to set aside all that cut throat selfishness for the ones you love succeeding, your own success will come with a price."

"Blaine-"

"The top isn’t going to feel good if you’re all alone, Rachel. Go talk to her." With a look he finally gets up and leaves the bedroom, leaving Rachel with rapidly cooling Thai food and the first clear thoughts in days.

She finds out from Brittney what time Quinn’s rehearsals end that next day and winds up sitting on the floor outside her dorm room when the blonde gets back, eliminating the ability to ignore her. Quinn looks exhausted, with sunglasses over her eyes and her hair in a limp pony tail, sweatshirt baggy over ratty leggings. Rachel has seen her girlfriend burnt out from studying, coffee shop shifts and NYADA shows- it doesn’t look like this.

Quinn looks her way and her breath hitches. "Rachel."

"We need to talk." She says in a rush, before Quinn steps her long legs over Rachel and into her dorm.

Quinn looks at her through sunglasses. "Fine. Come in." She swipes the key card and enters in, letting Rachel close the door behind them. They have been here on countless occasions and Rachel knows every inch of this space- has studied at the desk and tiny table of the kitchenette, sat on every chair and part of floor with friends, become intimately familiar with Quinn’s bed- but finds herself just standing through the doorway, transfixed as Quinn began moving around the kitchenette and peering in the fridge before pulling out a container and dumping its contents into a pan on the tiny stove top to heat. Rachel clears her throat in anticipation of her speech, but Quinn looks up from where she’s stirring the food. Without sunglasses, her exhaustion is only more clear and her eyes are red rimmed. The NYADA gossip mill thinks this is what fine looks like? "A minute, please, Rach?"

She obliges, and after an agonising wait ends up sitting opposite Quinn at the little table. She spears a vegetable with the fork and finally meets Rachel’s eyes. "So."

It’s the invitation she’s been waiting for. Through her whole life, Rachel has had no problems learning lines and monologues, but find she didn’t have to learn off any sort of apology for Quinn, the words and thoughts of the last few days coming easily to express how sorry she was, how badly she’s messed up with her selfish and overly driven nature, how miserable she’s been. The whole time Quinn pokes at her stir fry, periodically meeting Rachel’s frantic eyes and nodding along at what she has to say. She’s finally starting to run out of steam and coming to the conclusion she’s decided must be inevitable now that her girlfriend has seen past the Broadway glitz that she had fooled everyone with, including herself. ..."and while I admit the relationship we have had was never strictly professional, I’m hopeful that we can create a working relationship that will help both of us navigate the rest of college successfully without reminding us the heartbreak we have endured." She finishes her grand speech, throat closing with each word that passed.

Quinn had gone from listening intently to the apology to tears welling in her hazel eyes, though. "Working Relationship?", she whispered. "Are you breaking up with me?"

"I was under the impression you were about to break up with me?" Rachel responded, concern clouding her vision.

Quinn meets her gaze and holds it. "No, no." She repeats emphatically after a pause. "I wanted you to apologise, which you’ve done even if it’s in dramatic Rachel fashion. I don’t want to throw our relationship away over this."

Rachel laughs in pure disbelief. "But I have proved myself to be selfish and career focused, ambitious to a fault. You don’t deserve to be with someone like that."

Quinn swallows back tears. "Rach, you’re more than your worst mistake. If the bad things we do defined us, we’d have no one left." She gets a faraway look on her eyes at which Rachel can’t understand. "Your reaction hurt me. But I love you and all the good things about you, still."

"These past few days have shown me how much I need you, how much I love you, how proud I am of you. I just wish I’d shown it." Rachel says in a small voice.

"With what we both want to do as a job, some professional jealousy was bound to happen at some point. Maybe we learn from this, be glad it happened when we’re young enough and in love enough to deal with it." Quinn speaks with enough confidence to put this behind them for now, and Rachel wipes at her eyes and smiles back to her.

"Now, do you want some? It’s vegan." She continues, offering the plate. Rachel tries some noodles off the fork and feels settled for the first time in a week. Quinn must’ve made this yesterday- and she’s not even vegetarian.

Within the hour Rachel leaves, the both of them exhausted from rehearsals the added emotional stress of the last week. As the shows kick off they talk through things- try to work out new and better ways to deal with being in the same industry, figure out when they can visit each other in an increasingly busy summer. Quinn tells Rachel all the details she can about her character Ellen, the other leads (Neil Patrick Harris, which makes Rachel just a little jealous) and kisses her senseless after her opening night for the NYADA musical. Rachel returns the favour when she makes it to Quinn’s closing night, the flowers she brought discarded into Kurt’s arms to press impossibly closer to her super talented girlfriend, whose solo she definitely cried during.

Later on, they’ll leave the bar they’re at with their friends early and sneak back to Quinn’s dorm- and any of the worry Rachel had in that tiny space just a week ago with replaced with passion and adoration. They’d survived what could’ve torn them apart and were celebrating. Who could blame them?

The celebratory mood lasted as the first restful weeks of summer break kicked in as results and rave reviews greeted Rachel and her classmates. Quinn is keen to spend as much time with her best friends as possible and so they spend long days out to brunch or lounging around Santana and Brittney’s apartment- the blonde teaches Quinn every dance she’s choreographing at the studio she works at and Rachel and Santana are happy to lounge about and gossip while their girlfriends push back the furniture and exhaust themselves with hip hop. Rachel is on the receiving end of Santana’s sharp tongue more than she used to be, but decides it’s probably deserved. They split the rest of their time between Blaine and Kurt and the Berry men, enjoying dinners in the open air and plays and musicals at any and every chance. The last week before Rachel leave for St Louis, Quinn has her last shifts at the coffee shop and they don’t part company for 5 days straight. Rachel brushes tears from her eyes at the airport despite her excitement for the coming performances- Quinn will be in LA by the time she’s back.

It turns out she’s right to be excited- the open air atmosphere of MUNY is electric and doing a week of shows then changing to another is a rush like nothing she’d done before. Her cast mates, musical threats students and graduates from the top institutions in the country, become like a new family as the weeks pass and days are a blur of impromptu sing songs, performances and meals out in the heat of the St Louis summer. Each day is completed with a FaceTime with Quinn in the city and they swap stories- hers of sunburn and enthused crowds while Quinn documents the process of packing up her dorm and then unpacking in the LA studio Burt had helped her to sort out and through the earilest days of rehearsals. When Rachel’s last show of My fair lady comes, she realises she really could dance all night knowing her fathers were in the audience watching with rapt attention and her girlfriend was killing it in singing rehearsals even if she was a hundred miles away.

After a brief vacation with her dads, getting to share the vibrant city she’d come to love in the short time she’d been there, Rachel lands with a bump into her junior year in New York. The semester feels busier than ever and lacks the excitement Quinn has the ability to inject into their most mundane classes, and increased specialisation means they barely ever see their friends from other majors. Even Santana hits an even bigger workload in her degree and her flow of party invites slows- as a result Rachel spends many nights bent over books and practising monologues with Kurt in the apartment, and ticking off days on the calendar until the next time she sees her girlfriend becomes nothing short of a sacred ritual.

They passed Memorial Day weekend in LA, which Quinn showing her the trailer, sets and castmates she’d only been able to see through FaceTime up until that point. The shoot was well underway and Rachel got to spend a day watching Quinn film scenes with her on-screen love interest, in her element. By the end of the weekend, Rachel is even friendly enough with the girl to quell her jealously as they end vegan food on sunset. It had been an adventurous trip for sure, but it made Rachel long even more for the first week in October when Quinn would be back in the city for a blissful 7 days when things could be familiar- waking up in Rachel’s apartment bed, buying coffees with their classmates, watching New York sunsets. They were making long distance work, but the memories of that awful few days of quasi-break up were still too fresh in her memory for Rachel to be truly at ease without her girlfriend by her side in their city.

She finally ticks the last day off her calendar and sets off to surprise greet Quinn at the airport, eager to kiss her once more, tell her stories and soak up time in her girlfriends presence she so desperately missed. But as the baggage carousel from the LA flight whirs to a stop, empty, her stomach drops, pulling out her phone.

Brittney misses the call. Santana picks up on the third ring. "Hey, San. Have you heard from Quinn? I’m here waiting for her flight but...nothing so far."

Santana clears her throat thickly down the line. "Oh shit, Berry, Q hasn’t told you? To be fair, she’s not in the best condition to."

Panic sweeps through her, imaging car crashes, lost planes, fires and beeping hospital monitors in quick succession. "Told me what?"

"We’re in Lima, Q had her flight changed this morning when we found out. Finn..." she breaks off and Rachel finally places the deepness in her voice from crying. "He died really suddenly. We’re here for the funeral."

The relief their all okay is quickly replaced with confusion. Standing in the bustle of JFK, Rachel thinks hard and comes up with nothing. "I’m sorry, who is Finn?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (In my mind the musical Quinn is going to be in is like the Prom, but not the Prom because I couldn't decide whether to make her Emma or Alyssa.)  
> Next chapter- movie musicals, funerals and the fate of Quinn and Rachel as the truth comes out, stay tuned!


	5. the things we don't leave behind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to Quinn's pov now, for the funeral, the truth coming out and what comes after it. I recommend listening to 'When i grow up' from Matilda before of after this chapter for the full effect.
> 
> thanks for all the support, especially after leaving you on such a cliff hanger!

"Nice job today, Quinn. The chemistry on screen is really starting to come together." Mark, the AD, said as he passed her on the way to her trailer at the end of a long filming day. She smiles widely at him, but keeps walking- inside the high school where the bulk of her scenes had taken place was air conditioned, but the still hot LA September made her excited to change out of the heavy denim dungarees that had been her costume for the past few days and into something lighter. She sends a quick mirror selfie to Rachel and double checks she’ll be free later to call, and then busies herself getting changed.

No matter how many days on set pass she remains absolutely enchanted by the whole experience, a thrumming excitement she feels right down to her bones that she’s doing this, and she’s good at it. Some of her older co-stars are already big names, and they look at her like something akin to an equal, offer her tips and triumphant hugs after successful scenes. The songs are wonderful, real ear-worms; she’s sang them delicately in recording studios and loudly and unashamedly with fellow cast members when one too many drinks give way to karaoke. Most importantly its just plain fun- the playing a character, the dance sequences and sparkly costumes, the friendships formed through dinners with her castmates, like the one she’s currently getting ready for as she shimmies into a dress and swipes on eyeliner to the plain makeup her character, Ellen, was in that day. Quinn doesn’t want to waste a single second- though she’s glad to have facetimes with her true family back in New York during the whole experience.

That night, she rolls over in bed, letting cool sheets and the noise of traffic drifting through the window help her to relax while chatting to Rachel absentmindedly. Her girlfriend is telling her about a ‘contact improv’ workshop they took involving she and Kurt rolling over the top of each other and giggling through her retelling of it, and Quinn thinks it’s the cutest thing. It’s also nice to hear her happy- sounds like junior year has been tough across the board and she feels guilty to miss it. Dutifully, Rcahel asks about filming and lets Quinn gush a bit.

She loves the character of Ellen so much, who gets outed through an essay contest and subsequently kicked out of her home in her small town and decides to use it as a chance to stir up as much trouble as possible while she’s the town pariah- most importantly attempting to have the town recognise its true hero, firefighter Michael May who was stripped of his recognition in saving the town from a blaze when he came out as gay (a role which Neil Patrick Harris is proving to be incredible at.) The love story on the side, in which Ellen falls for the nosey editor of the school paper Jamie who’s constantly reporting others scandals to keep her own sexuality out of the spotlight, is beyond sweet and produces nice duets for Quinn to have with her co-star. Ellen is feisty and coming into her own, brave to live how she wants to in her hometown, and while Carmen suggested her for the part based on her experiences with being kicked out, she’s definitely channelling Santana and Britt for the ‘out at high school’ experience. Quinn herself had needed to hide it right until the day Judy and Russel glared angry eyes at her as she drove away, having even having Finn convinced till the very end as some method acting trick turned attempt to save from breaking his heart- she tries not to dwell on it.

She’s fighting heavy eyelids by the time she finishes a story about her castmates playing a prank with the help of the make- up ladies. "I’m about to fall asleep on you, Rach. Gotta go. Love you and call tomorrow?"

"Course. Can we go earlier though, I’m taking a dance class late with Britt tomorrow."

"It’s sexy that you’re friends with my friends."

"And it’s sexy that you care about that sort of thing." Comes Rachel’s reply.

"I miss you," Quinn says, rather than dwell on their sexiness for too long and waken herself back up. "I’m so glad I’ll be home in like two weeks."

"Can’t wait, baby. Now seriously, I’m putting the phone down. Love you." says Rachel’s gentle voice before the line goes dead.

This musical is wonderful, the best professional experience in the world. But she is so excited to be back with her home.

As October rolls around, she hugs her cast mates goodbye for a week while some of the older adult cast have scenes to film and dreams about her favourite NYC coffee. But it’s clear the world has other plans. She misses three calls while on set from a number she never thought she’d hear from again and seven concerned texts from Brittney that confirm why Carole Hudson would be phoning his son’s heartbreaker ex-girlfriend. Somethings happened to Finn.

One of the directors assistants finds her motionless, ash faced with grief after getting off the phone with Carole, the older woman barely composed as she delivered the crushing news- Finn, dead in his fraternity house near the OSU campus. Some congenital disease, never picked up, suddenly fatal. She tells Carole she’ll be at the funeral with their old group of friends from the auditorium at lunch. "I know you never left on good terms Quinn, but he thought of you fondly. I think he’d want you there."

Poor Mark somehow manages to change her flight and she finds herself in Columbus airport mere hours later, hugging Tina, who sports identical red eyes and heartbroken features to her own. They drive back to Lima together, silent save for soft radio music in the background, until "I still haven’t found what I’m looking for" starts to play about ten minutes outside Lima city limits and Quinn hits the stereo to turn it off, almost cracking the dash of their rental car with the force. she desperately wishes this reunion was under different circumstances- just a few weeks back she’d talked about flying to visit the her old friend at college and see her kill it in the Ivy League.

Tina leaves her off at Santana’s house and they share a long hug in the car, making arrangements for the three ex-cheerleaders to meet with Tina, Artie and Mercedes tomorrow morning to attend the funeral together. She barely manages to cross the threshold before she’s collapsing into Maribel Lopez’ arms, being handed a cup of hot chocolate and sent upstairs to crawl into Santana’s bed with her two best friends. It’s weird, to see them in the red accented room of Santana’s youth after all this time away. Its weirder still, to be in Lima, where she’d never planned to step foot again. It’s weird how death changes things.

They let old movies play on the TV to create background noise while they hug tight together as the sun sets out the window. From the moment she’s found out to now, all Quinn can think about is her last interactions with the boy, his giant frame slumping in on itself as she explained herself, eyes swimming with rare tears, angry shouting the night before she’d left. Cold, anonymous birthday well wishes on Facebook since. Now she’ll never see him again. She’s deep in thought, letting Brittney cry into her hair when Santana’s phone rings.

Within seconds Quinn can make out the muffled voice on the other end and it’s like ice floods her veins. She forgot to tell Rachel she wouldn’t be in New York.

"Finn...he passed away. We’re in Lima for his funeral"

It hits Quinn suddenly, she’s forgotten something much, much worse. Despite tinny monitors and thousands of miles of distance she hears Rachel’s question as clear as if it came from the other wise of the room. "Sorry, who’s Finn?"

Santana looks like she’s holding back tears. "Our friend from high school, Q’s ex? The football player?"

"I don’t...I’m not sure I understand..." comes Rachel’s gentle reply. Santana turns to stare at her, horrified as Quinn snatched the phone.

"Hi Rach, it’s me."

"I’m so glad to hear your voice, I’m so sorry for your loss? I’m sorry I don’t remember him from your stories right now."

To hell with it, she thinks. Can’t bury skeletons in your closet when they’re about to be actually buried. "Finn was my boyfriend for three and a half years."

Rachel’s breath hitches. "Come again?"

"You don’t remember him because I’ve never told you about him and I swear I have my reasons but I literally can’t talk to you about them right now. We’ll talk when I get to New York?" Her tone borders hysterical through the tears, and she’s pleading that it’s enough for now, already just wanting to go back to having a nap with her childhood friends and remembering the golden boy who just wanted to treat her well.

"You had a boyfriend. For three years. That’s longer than we’ve known each other, Quinn!" Rachel screeches down the phone.

"Rachel I can’t do this now." The tears in her eyes don’t have one clear cause anymore.

Rachel breathes heavily while the hustle of JFK arrivals filters through the phone. "When’s the funeral?" She asks shortly, with suddenly no emotion.

"Tomorrow."

"And when’s your flights out?"

"I have no idea. I barely even know how I made it here." She says shakily.

"Okay, I’ll see you in Lima on Thursday morning, and we’ll talk about this."

Shit. What? It’s Tuesday. "Rach, shit, please don’t do that."

"No I’m better coming there, checking you haven’t lied about anything else,” Rachel doesn’t sound particularly put together either, “See you then, Quinn. I hope the funeral is okay." Her voice softens momentarily on the last sentence, and then the phone clicks off.

Santana is staring at her in horror, Brittney with pity. She turns to them. "I hurt him so badly, then. I just didn’t want her to know what I am capable of."

With that, she slides off the bed and moves to the guest room that Maribel had let her live in for those last months of senior year, which she says will always be Quinn’s. It’s fitting that she cried here after her break up just before she moved to New York, she thinks, as she throws herself down on the bed, sobs wracking her body.

It’s the late in the night when she wakes up from whenever exhaustion had claimed her. A quick glance in the mirror in the bathroom revels her puffy eyes with dark circles beneath, crumpled hair from the position she’d collapsed in and the saddest expression she’d ever seen herself wear. In high school, she would’ve tried to memorise it for future acting purposes, then smiled it away. Now she just stares at herself sullenly and grabs towels for the shower, thankful she left whatever body wash and shampoo she was using in the summer after high school here for this exact moment. (Its this scent Finn would’ve remembered.)

Wet hair draped around her shoulders, she pads down to the kitchen for a drink; all the crying had left her like a desert. She honestly has no idea what time it is until she sees the TV silently illuminating the Den. Shit, Santana is still up. Time to face at least some of the music- it’ll be good acting practice for seeing Rachel.

She sits down on the sofa at the opposite end and Santana doesn’t turn her head as she starts. "Britney tried to explain it to me. But I don’t get it. Why would you try so hard to hide Finn? He’s a sweetheart, Q."

Her friend doesn’t notice the incorrect tense but it pierces Quinn’s heart like a knife. "You know how I ended things with Finn, I couldn’t imagine telling Rachel what I had done when we first met. It became easier to just write him out of the stories than explain why I’d lied in the first place."

"Surely Rachel of all people would understand breaking up to follow your dreams."

Quinn shakes her head in disagreement, thinking back to that summer afternoon. Maybe in every life Finn loves girls who wear their dreams a size too big. Sometimes he puts them on trains. But this life? This Quinn? She remembers his offer, wiling to defer his own dreams to make sure she would be okay in the big bad city. She remembers her own messy confession. Sometimes, Finn just gets left behind.

"It’s was more than that and you know it. He was willing to come with me, San. You remember how excited he was about that football scholarship, to make his Mom proud. But he was willing to give it up and come to New York with me, if I wanted it. And how did I repay him? I panicked, and told him it was all acting,” she hisses. “I’ve been a liar in some way almost my whole life, but I should’ve never stayed with Finn all those months when I had figured myself out. I knew that being with him felt more like acting than having a boyfriend should and yet I kept him around then broke his heart." She shakes her head in despair. "What I did to him was unforgivable. Especially when it’s Finn, you know? He was kind and simple and honest and fair."

"He deserved better than this." Santana says bitterly. It’s not about their high school break up.

"He always did." They fall silent for a while before Santana turns away from the screen to look at her in earnest.

"In a way I understand why you stayed with Finn. You loved him, you know? It just wasn’t in the romantic way it could’ve been."

She nods and Santana continues. "But you can’t lie about what happened either, Q. Rachel’s far from perfect, I mean look at the firestarter debacle. But she’s honest to a fault."

Something deep inside her recognised the truth in those words. Rachel has been entirely her own while Quinn’s always been whatever she needs to be for other people- perfect daughter hiding her whole life, cheerleader with the status symbol boyfriend to catapult her beyond small town viciousness, equal parts partying and struggling student, the sob story that gets the part that’s just like her.

"I don’t know how to be honest like that."

The consequence of that admission hangs in the air and Santana doesn’t say anything. She just pats the seat beside her and pulls her into a hug and Quinn feels 13 again, wondering how she did it, how the other girl faked it then took what she made and owned it instead of getting stuck somewhere between genuine and spinning tales. They drift off as the movie plays. (Quinn wakes up the next morning to credits still looping and a crushing dread on her chest.)

The funeral is nice. Their friends from high school sit in a clump with other McKinley Titans and staff about half way down the church. Finn’s fraternity brothers and college teammates take turns speaking, telling of a Finn who was going to use his kindness to make a difference one day as a teacher, who used his gentle nature every day of the season to unite their team and keep them going. It’s nice to hear of Finn being a true leader and it’s good to see how he’ll be remembered by these people. When she tells Carole that after the service it’s with tears down her face and no makeup trying to hide her grief. It feels honest.

Their little group that sang together go for coffee afterwards and share stories of the boy who’d play the drums a with grace reserved just for music, then trip down the stairs on the way out to class, who loved rock songs but had a guilty pleasure love of Taylor Swift, who made sure Artie got to go on every single ride the rest of them did during senior ditch day no matter how many wheelchair transfers he had to help him do. They catch up too, and it’s good to hear these people succeeding out in the world and celebrate their success as they tease her about becoming a musical star. It’s a shame they didn’t do this big group catch up before, so Finn could tell them himself about teaching practice and Ohio state life, but that doesn’t bear thinking about, just drives her to make them promise to have a group call next month. When Quinn tells them she misses hanging out as a group, it’s honest. They spend the rest of the night in Brittney’s basement room, singing a little bit, ordering pizza and crying when one of them needs it. It’s bittersweet but a nice ending before they all fly out again- but a phone buzz says that Rachel has landed. Her problem is just beginning.

The next day she meets her girlfriend in the coffee shop attached to the Lima Holiday Inn. Rachel’s never been squashed by suburban America and here, her bouncy hair and city-chic outfit looks out of place in a cafe filled with small town business men and old couples who’ve lived in Ohio their whole life. It makes Quinn wonder- does she look like she’d outgrown this place yet?

She hasn’t spoken to her girlfriend since the phone call and has no idea how Rachel will react: but the she stands up and pulls her into a violently tight hug. "I’m sorry you guys lost him." She whispers into her hair, and Quinn prays to the God she’d spent half of yesterday’s service apologising to that she’s not about to lose the girl across from her too.

Rachel lets her go and they sit down. "I can’t believe you’re in Lima, Ohio right now." Quinn says, the first thing she thinks to.

"Neither can I. It’s quaint." She’s being fake polite, like how she talks to reporters who piss them off on dates.

"It’s a shit hole that takes someone dying for me to come back to." Quinn says bluntly, not feeling warmer to Lima having been there for the past 48 hours of her life in the town. And she’d been disowned here, so.

"How was the funeral?"

"Terrible. Finn was 20 years old and he should be out playing football with the guys doing his eulogy."

Rachel grimaces in sympathy. "He was a football player?"

"Yeah, Ohio state’s quarterback this year. They scouted him from high school. Finn wasn’t the brightest and he didn’t have huge ambition, but he shone on that football field." She says sadly. It feels wrong to be talking about him after trying so long to keep him hidden.

"And you dated him in high school, which you actively deceived me about." Rachel leads on coolly and oh boy, it’s time.

"Yeah, I did. And then I lied about it." her matter of fact tone seems to surprise Rachel, usually the blunt one in their relationship. Its unfamiliar to her too- Quinn Fabray does stories and method acting and half-truths more than she’d ever admitted to herself.

"And?" Rachel looks at her imploringly. Quinn reaches across for her hand. "I think I’m predisposed to lying, honestly. I couldn’t let Russel and Judy know what I was doing as a kid because they would’ve stopped me by any means necessary. I knew my only ticket out of Lima was to be a champion, and losers aren’t champions in small towns so I lied my way through high school and played this bitch character to stay on the top of the pile and the cheer squad.

I dated Finn as a apart of that lie, and by the time I realised he wasn’t just the token footballer but a really great guy I’d realised that the whole problem was just that- he was a guy. So then I lied my way through the rest of the relationship to avoid hurting him." She laughs sadly. "It didn’t work. It was just cruel to tell him I was method acting our relationship when I did love him, just not in the way he loved me. And now he’s dead and will never know that.

I guess I wanted to make a good impression when I got to take you out for dinner. You know, you’re Rachel Berry! You had shaped my childhood, inspired me to even get to New York and I didn’t want you to know that I was so cruel and manipulative.” Quinn pauses then, looking at their clasped hands and the repeated pattern of the carpet. “ I wanted to show you the best of me. I just never thought that that was just more lying. It’s been convenient for me my whole life." She feels exposed, her worst traits hanging in the air between them. She finally looks at Rachel’s face to see her expressions catch up to her thoughts and settle into a storm.

"When else have you lied to me?" Hurt flashes through her system knowing Rachel thinks she’d act like that, now.

"Nothing else." She pauses and thinks maybe this is the true way to convey how much she loves the girl across from her, not kissing or Matilda necklaces or even the three words themselves . "I’ve always felt like I can be the real version of myself with you. I don’t want to act or make up truths for you, I just want to be me."

Rachel nods. "I’m impressed by your introspection and ability to so eloquently explain your actions today, Quinn. And I appreciate your honesty in our relationship. It’s not your fault you had to grow up and do what you did. It’s admirable how you were single-minded to get yourself out of here to live your dreams. I hope I would’ve been the same, if I grew up in Lima." She takes a sip of her coffee and it’s a pause, a moment to think about her next words. Quinn can hardly breathe.

"I hope we can be together forever Quinn . But before that, I need you to know that you’re not lying to yourself. You need some time to not act as anyone but yourself-and you need to do that by yourself."

Quinn sees white with panic. "Rachel I am begging you, do not break up with me in Ohio."

Rachel is wearing a soft, resigned smile at her girlfriends’ reaction. "I’m not. I promise. But you finish filming in November and you don’t start back to classes until January. Come find me then, okay?" She looks sad. Quinn lets her own devastation show.

"I love you." She whispers a little brokenly.

"I love you too." Rachel looks resolute and leans over to plant a kiss on her forehead. She reaches down into her bag and produces a boarding pass. "I booked you a flight back to LA. Leaves tonight. I’ve got to head soon for my flight to New York.”

Quinn is crying openly in this hotel cafe now. They’ve been together for no more than a half hour and now she’s just supposed to go and figure out her life alone? But Rachel is getting up and leaving and promising to call when she lands and see her very soon. As she heads to the lifts to the rooms Quinn bolts out of her seat after her and kisses her deeply in the hotel foyer, scandalised citizens be damned. It tastes of salt from her own tears and the cheap coffee Rachel was drinking, all right but all wrong. They press their foreheads together afterwards and Quinn will feel that warmth and pressure like a ghost for a week. "It’ll be okay" Rachel’s whispers say. Then she’s gone.

Somehow she wakes up in LA the next morning like Lima is just a bad dream. But it’s not. This is life now. She’s thankful for the movie, which proves busier than ever with huge dance sequences and a lot of emotional work with her on screen older firefighter friend. Maybe playing Ellen finding herself helps her too. It starts in LA on the advice of her cast mates- while therapy is the obvious first step, she tries yoga with the kind girl who plays Jamie, goes to wellness retreats with some of the cast members, lets her director show her the best hiking trails. It’s that that really sticks. LA is beautiful and still warm compared to a New York November, so she takes to tails in all her spare time and it’s nice to see the open sky and think of God and little girls belting musical songs and being thrown into the great blue from the top of a cheerleading pyramid. She buys ten pairs of drum sticks and ties them with red ribbon and leaves them in all the scenic spots and messages each to Carole.

When filming is over she goes to live with Mercedes in downtown for a week. She does the coffee run for the whole recording studio and lets her friend’s powerhouse voice wash over her. These months are some sort of pilgrimage, and it’s nice to begin with reminders of auditorium stairs and hidden music blooming in McKinley. She sits with her friend on the floor of the booth, last ones to leave that night, and Quinn apologies for every cruel word said in pursuit of a public image back then. The soft walls absorb her words, and she gets bone crushing hug, shorthand to say that her friend had forgiven her many years ago, then dragged off to meet Mercedes’ new boyfriend and LA friends until she forgets the past a little bit.

Artie gets a visit at his college, then Tina at hers- the ramps are the right slant at MIT (this Quinn didn’t need her own wheelchair experience to know and care which ones were too steep at McKinely, but fought Figgins about it on the regular). She convinces Tina to dye steaks in both their hair in the sinks of the dorms at Brown. She goes to see her freshmen roommate Lilly perform in a Christmas show and gets wine drunk in her apartment that night, telling her everything that happened and letting the girl who’d seen her fall love with Rachel from a front row seat soothe her that it would all be alright. “I had eyes during freshmen year you know, Quinnie. I know what way you look at each other.”

With the Berry’s out of the question, Quinn ends up in Lima for the actual holiday, craving turkey with Maribel and catching up with her two best friends- FaceTime hadn’t been cutting it as much as she’s tried to keep in contact with all her New York friends. (She talks to Rachel sometimes, sends her a Christmas present in the mail, tells her that she lets her hair dry into weird curls now, wears glitter as highlighter when she feels like it and that she misses her very, very much).

When they celebrate New Years at the Lopez house, Brittney finds her and hugs her tight after the ball drop. "You finally suit you self." She murmurs happily and Quinn holds on for dear life to her oldest friend. When they pack up a few days later, she’s ready to come too and actually remembers flying out of Columbus this time, after the trauma of the last few trips to and from the airport. Santana and Britt go in a taxi back to their apartment while she heads in another to the loft - where Kurt promised they’d be.

When Lucy clutched her programme to her chest and watched a tiny school girl sing, being grown up seemed very far away, blurry future images of her name up in lights. When cheerleader Quinn was secretly piling theatre credits and cheer championships on to a musical theatre resume, she was lying, scared she’d never climb all the branches she needed to get there. Falling in love there, thriving felt like writing her own story, making sure the ending wasn’t written yet. Looking out the window at the top of the stairwell to the loft apartment at their city now, she wonders if this is what it is to grow up- New York feels like it fits in a way it didn’t before she left it. She is just one part of the millions finding their place, their voice, their people, fighting all the monsters you need to fight, never burning in the glow of the bright lights of her future. Honestly- it feels really nice.

She’s done enough introspection though. Quinn gathers up her courage and knocks. Rachel has her hair up in a bun, in work out leggings and a show sweatshirt when she comes to the door, gently pleased expression on her face, and oh, how her heart fills at the slight of her. She looks warm and familiar, exactly the same. Quinn hopes that she herself looks changed, softer, for the better.

“Hi”, she starts. “I’m Quinn Fabray.”

Rachel laughs at her. “Come here.”

She’s pulled into a trademark Rachel Berry hug that quickly turns to deep, hungry kisses on the doorway. Just like that, they’re Rachel and Quinn again, Quinn and Rachel. And they’re going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ouch. Just one chapter to go now, but I have a feeling things will be looking up again.


	6. how to have it all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we come to the end with an epilogue of sorts, where Rachel and Quinn go next. Thank you SO much to all the support on this story, can't believe its gone from a little idea i couldn't shake to this story. I have appreciated all of the comments so much! Enjoy a little happy ending.

_Names in up lights: Broadway sweethearts Rachel Berry and Quinn Fabray on college romance, upcoming projects and how to have it all!_

Broadwaytimes.com

We sat down with Broadway’s hottest couple of the moment to chat all things Broadway.

BT: Quinn! Rachel! A pleasure to sit down and talk to you guys, especially together. How are you guys!

RB: a pleasure for us, too. We’re good! Monday is a quiet day around here, so just enjoying getting to relax a little together.

BT: I’m sure that doesn’t happen often, with both of you in Broadway shows full time. Remind us where you’re at, at the moment.

QF: you’re right about that. At the moment I’m Miss Honey in Matilda at the Shubert theatre, and Rachel is, of course, Fanny Brice in Funny girl at the Winter Garden.

BT: for which she’s currently nominated for a Tony for best lead in a musical revival.

QF: indeed. I’m very proud.

BT: both of these musicals are your big roles straight out of NYADA, correct? What drew you to these in particular?

RB: I’ll go first, I think mine is obvious. Barbra Streisand is a legend and personal idol. I jumped at the chance to audition just before graduation- it would’ve felt wrong not to.

QF: in a funny way, we’re both doing something now that inspired us along the way. The first musical I ever had the honour of seeing was Matilda. It felt fittingly full circle to get to play a part of it on Broadway, now.

BT: and from reviews, it’s clear both of you love the parts.

Both: absolutely.

BT: of course, you’ve both explored other interests. Especially you, Quinn. Perhaps you’re better known as Ellen Walsh from the Netflix adaption of Fire Starter, with Neil Patrick Harris?"

QF: yes, technically my musical debut was on the screen, not the stage. We filmed the movie my junior year of college and it was really formative for me as an artist and a person. The response when it came out, blew me away.

BT: and what do you say to the rumours you’re returning to the screen for another movie musical once you leave Matilda?

QF: now, I can’t reveal all my secrets.

BT: at least we know what Rachel’s next move will be. After two years of funny girl, what made you decide it would be time to move on?

RB, laughing: I love playing Fanny so much. But when Wicked comes knocking and needs an Elphaba, you don’t say no.

BT: Quinn, what do you think of all the green paint in your future?

QF: trust me, we’ve survived much worse.

BT: you two have been together since freshman year of college, right?

RB: right! Our friend Kurt Hummel (of NBC’s ‘Real Life’ as a teen and currently, The Boy From Oz at the Imperial Theatre) introduced us and we got together not long after.

QF: I don’t think we would’ve survived college without one another.

BT: you guys! This is what our readers wanna hear, it’s precious. Surely you faced challenges along the way?

QF: of course. Just like on stage, in our personal lives things won’t always go to plan. We’ve learnt to face the hard situations together and talk to each other through it all.

BT: I’d assume being in the same industry would make it competitive, no?

RB: I learned a long time ago that the lights are brighter when both our names are up in them, not just one of us.

BT: wise words. Do you have any sage wisdom for us, Quinn?

QF: you have to be honest to get anywhere. That’s part of why we’re doing this interview- we hear so many tabloid rumours about us and it’s nicer to be fully authentic.

BT: rumours... like a secret wedding?

Both girls laughing: we swear we’re not married!

RB: it’s definitely in the future. But we’re only a few years out of college, we have plenty of time.

BT: you’ve heard it from the source now, folks. No wedding yet.

QF: Rachel is really taken with Instagram stories at the moment- so with her by my side I have a funny feeling you guys will know when it happens.

BT: speaking about being your authentic self Quinn- that’s been a big part of your journey, hasn’t it?

QF: yes. When Firestarter came out I revealed that’s Ellen’s story of being kicked out resonated with me because I’d been through it too. I had to hide not just my sexuality but my passion for performing growing up, and I paid for it when the truth came out.

BT: and now you’re a keen advocate for teen homelessness and arts access programmes.

RB: I’m so proud of the advocacy work Quinn does. I was lucky to grow up in the industry and can hardly image what it’s like to have no music education, no support systems. She’s trying to stop that being the reality for countless kids.

QF, blushing: she’s too kind about me.

BT: it’s nice to see you guys support each other so much. There’s a reason you were voted fan favourite Broadway couple in our poll last year!

RB: trust us, it was an honour.

BT: that just about wraps up our interview for today, ladies. Just one more question: the jobs, the celebrity life, your relationship- what’s the secret to having it all?

RB: having each other.

QF: that’s a good answer. I’d say we don’t have it all- life is never going to be perfect. Trust me when I say we’ve both made huge mistakes in the past and there’s days we have to work a little harder to get over that. There’s days when a critic’s words get under your skin, when we’re tired and flawed and struggle. But when I think of where we started- that fact we’ve gone from little girls with big dreams to this? When you focus on that, it’s like we do have it all.

And there you have it, guys. Stay tuned for our next interview with Rachel Berry before her big Wicked debut!

* * *

It’s a 6 months later when Rachel thinks maybe that reporter was right. Quinn takes her last bows in Matilda to rapturous applause from every member of the Berry family and a selection of school, college and industry friends in the audience and then organizes the most opulent dinner the next night just for the two of them. They’ve got a week before Wicked introduces her and Quinn flies out to film the Mean Girls musical adaption. Rachel dreads having her girlfriend so far away from her, especially when the blonde looks so beautiful in a deep red backless dress for their dinner.

It’s on the way home that Quinn has the car stop at the NYADA campus. Could it be? She has a small smile and bright eyes as she drags Rachel out of the car, towards the door and down high wooden corridors. Muscle memory betrays their mystery location before their heels start to click on the smooth dance studio floors. But it doesn’t look like how it did when Cassie July was putting them through paces. Instead, there’s photos hung on string lines of fairy lights in every direction- Rachel and Quinn smiling with their freshmen roommates, Rachel jumping on Quinn after her sophomore show, Quinn kissing Rachel senseless after their senior one. Quinn and Rachel on her Funny Girl opening night, asleep in a pile on the sofa of their apartment, with the Berry men at the ocean. Rachel and Quinn, Quinn and Rachel- and in the middle standing is her girlfriend more beautiful than can ever be captured. Quinn gets down on one knee and she’s squealing a yes, pulling them into a long kiss, their journey echoed all around. Behind her eyes, Rachel sees stars- not just herself as one but the both of them, taking on the world.

In this world Rachel Berry tastes fame before she can do multiplication, and Quinn Fabray uses her ambition to get beyond a small town and gets caught up along the way. In this life they face things they’d never dream of in another. But with this kiss, this seal of a promise, Rachel can’t imagine anything more right than this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end :) Let me know if you've enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed!


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